20 Fascinating Stories & Facts About Marissa Mayer, The CEO Of Yahoo!

Marissa Mayer - Large - People With Impact

1) Marissa Mayer is the President and CEO of Yahoo!. She was the Vice President and spokesperson for Google for a long period. This American business executive was born on May 30, 1975 in Wausau, Wisconsin. She is the eldest of the two children born to Michael and Margaret Mayer.

2) Marissa’s father worked in water treatment plants while her mother was an art teacher. Her family helped her in gaining many skills such as ballet dancing; ice skating, piano, swimming and many more. Marissa admired Laura Beckman, and learnt valley ball tricks from Laura and she mentioned her in one of her interviews with the Los Angeles Times.

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3) Marissa did her graduation from Wausau West High School. She was also very active in extracurricular activities at her school, was president of the Spanish Club at her school, and took part in debating competitions. She was also nominated by Tommy Thompson who is Wisconsin governor as one of the two state delegates for the National Youth Science Camp, which was held in West Virginia.

4) Marissa chose Stanford University over Yale and joined ‘The Nutcracker’ ballet. She did her Masters in Computer Sciences, also specialized in Artificial Intelligence. She did Bachelors in symbolic systems. In acknowledgement of her work in the field of research, she got the degree of doctorate from Illinois Institute of Technology in 2009.

5) Before making her place at Google, she has had a privilege to hold key positions in research both at SRI International located in California and UBS research Centre in Zurich. Marissa became the first female engineer at Google in 1999. She became Vice President of Search Products and User Experiences after managing Local search, Google Maps and Location services.

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6) She worked in various capacities as a designer, engineer, product manager and strategic planner. She played a vital role in the development of Google Search, News, Images, Toolbar and Gmail. Marissa’s influence on the success of Google Earth, Google Books and many more, is very significant. She worked with Google for almost thirteen years.

7) One of the Marissa Mayer’s quotes is, “I helped build Google, but I don’t like to rest on (my) laurels. I think the most interesting thing is what happens next.”

8) Mayer joined Yahoo in July 2012. She became the company’s third CEO and became the member of the board of directors of the company. She joined Yahoo, when the company was facing a kind of downfall. Yahoo was facing declining stock prices and layoffs. She helped in improving the condition of this company.

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9) Above mentioned were her contributions to profit making companies. She is also a member of many non- profit boards like Cooper-Hewitt, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, National Design Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She has been an active member in all of these non-profit boards.

10) Marissa’s name was included in the list of America’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business by the Fortune magazine in year 2008 to 2011. Her ranking in this list increased from rank 50 in year 2008 to rank 38 in the year 2011. In year 2012, she was ranked 14th.

11) She was the youngest of all the women on this list when she was 33 years old. As well as she is the youngest women CEO in the Fortune 500 companies.

12) The interview of Lady Gaga with Mayer in 2011 obtained more than two million views on YouTube. This interview was part of the Musicians Google series. She is well recognized for her contributions in Google and Yahoo; this helped her in gaining the title of women of the year of Glamour magazine in 2009.

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13) Larry Page, the current CEO of Google dated Marissa for three years. After him, Marissa married Zach Bogue in December 2009 who is an internet investor. The day she announced the news of her pregnancy was the same day on which Yahoo hired her.

14) On September 30, 2012, Marissa gave birth to a baby. Before naming his son, she asked people for their suggestions on the name of her son through social media. However, prior to the suggestions from social media, she named her son ‘Macallister’.

15) Mayer got herself in a controversy at the time of her pregnancy. She took only a week or two weeks maternity leave and decided to work from home. This is recognized as a great example of girl power.

16) Marissa owns a luxury penthouse, worth five million dollars, in one of the renowned hotels in San Francisco, named as Four Seasons. The penthouse is located at the top of the hotel. It was after scrutinizing various properties; she made a decision to buy a house designed by Palo Alto Craftsman. Nevertheless, these are not her only possessions; there are a number of other expensive things as well.

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17) She believes in giving charity. Marissa is a serious devotee of fashion and design and one of the many customers of Oscar de la Renta. She also contributed an amount of $60,000 at a charity-based auction and got the chance of having lunch with Oscar de la Renta.

18) While being a working person, she loves baking too and she told this during many of her interviews that she always makes cupcakes by trying new ingredients and variations to her original recipe. She said it during an interview, “I’ve always loved baking; I think it’s because I’m very scientific. The best cooks are chemists.”

19) She loves to collect art pieces and this is evident from the fact that she also owns original arts works and pieces by Warhol. A, Lewitt. S, and Lichtenstein. She hired artist Dale Chihuly to make a ceiling installation of 400 pieces that features glass sea flora and fauna of brown color.

20) She is one of the leading business executive, but what many people do not know is that she is also a marathon runner. The NY Times has reported that Marissa ran a half marathon held in San Francisco, the marathon of Portland, and North America’s longest run ski race across the country. She also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

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Marissa Mayer - Large - People With Impact