January 13th, 2009
Yahoo to name Bartz CEO; Now the fun begins
Updated: Yahoo will reportedly name Carol Bartz, former CEO of Autodesk, as CEO.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Bartz has accepted the offer, capping a two-month search for a new leader. Bartz, 60, 
is the executive chairman of Autodesk. She stepped down from CEO of Autodesk in April 2006. She had worked at Sun, Digital Equipment and 3M.
Bartz (right) comes into a rough situation. Yahoo is facing an economic slowdown that has hurt Internet advertising and a legacy of miscues in 2008.
Here’s the Internet advertising outlook Bartz will have to overcome. These are Citi estimates from a research note Tuesday.
The early reaction was muted.
While Yahoo has some interesting plans such as its open platform strategy it has been mired poor morale and rough economics. On one front, Yahoo is an also ran relative to Google. Here’s a tale of Yahoo and Google and online ad share.
Bartz’s biggest conundrum: How do you reverse that online ad revenue decline in a downturn?
Meanwhile, there are continuing armchair CEOs–you could count board member Carl Icahn in that club–questioning Yahoo’s decision to thwart Microsoft’s takeover attempt. In retrospect, Yahoo goofed by not selling out to Microsoft. However, there is a search partnership on the table from Microsoft that may suit Yahoo. Bartz’s biggest decision will be whether to cut a search deal with Microsoft.
Toss in management changes — Jerry Yang back to being chief Yahoo after a stint as CEO — and Bartz has her work cut out.
The other lingering question about Bartz is whether she’s up for transforming Yahoo. Bartz did a great job at Autodesk, but Yahoo is a whole new ball of wax.
My take: I like the pick. Bartz proved to be quite capable at Autodesk, but flew under the usual Valley radar. In many respects, Bartz could be another Mark Hurd. Hurd came from NCR, a smaller company that just executed. When Hurd became CEO of HP there were questions whether he could handle the big stage. All he did was execute repeatedly. He won’t be confused for a media whore, but who cares if you are hitting the numbers.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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