Jan 14

Written by: Russ Henke
1/14/2009 7:21 AM 

Despite widespread public skepticism that she is the right choice, on January 13, 2009 Yahoo named former Autodesk chief executive Carol Bartz as its new CEO in an effort to revive the struggling Internet company. Bartz replaces Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

Yahoo has been suffering from slowing growth and tough competition from Google. Many Yahoo investors are still upset over the failed $47.5 billion takeover bid by Microsoft in 2008 ($33 per share), which given the subsequent collapse of the US economy, might have been the right move for Yahoo. On January 13, 2009 Yahoo stock fell 1% to $12.10.

Now 60 years old, Carol Bartz led Autodesk for 14 years. Its annual revenue grew five-fold by the time she stepped down in 2006, while its share price increased 10-fold during her tenure. Bartz remains as chairwoman of Autodesk. She's also on the board of Cisco Systems, alongside Yang, in addition to serving on the boards of Intel and NetApp.

Despite Carol’s spectacular success at Autodesk, skeptics worry whether she’s the best choice for Yahoo, because Carol may not have sufficient background in the media industry and online advertising on the Internet. Rather, her experience was at companies focused on business customers rather than consumers, of which Yahoo is said to have more than 500 million globally.

Carol Bartz is a tough, talented executive with a wide range of skills. It will be interesting to watch whether her excellent CEO skills are transferable to the unusual requirements of Yahoo at this juncture.

We wish her the best of luck!