In a surprising twist, Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, has been named CEO of Yahoo, The New York Times reported Monday. It had been widely assumed that interim CEO Ross Levinsohn
would be named to the post full-time.
Mayer, 37, had been a product executive at Google, where she oversaw the look and feel of many of the Silicon Valley giant’s most popular products,
including Google Search, Gmail, Google News, Google Images, and most recently, Google maps.
Mayer will now be responsible for setting Yahoo’s course. In a release, Mayer said she plans
to leverage the company’s strong franchises, including email, finance and sports, and to strengthen the company’s online video and mobile offerings, in particular.