Our staff met with the previous Yahoo! CEO in London for a short catch-up on resumes, motherhood and the very best methods for coping with unhealthy press.

Few would tackle the problem of strolling a mile in Marissa Mayer’s footwear. After 5 years as CEO of the troubled Web behemoth, she is now taking her superwoman cape off and transferring on to the subsequent huge factor. Her achievements as CEO (throughout her management, Yahoo! turned one in all three digital firms with over 1 billion customers globally) and private sacrifices for the corporate’s well-being (she solely took a complete of eight days off for the start of her first son) are quite a few.

But, it’s secure to say that Mayer is leaving a troubled legacy behind. From spending over $1 billion on the acquisition of Tumblr, which she herself referred to as “poetic”, to failing to reveal the large-scale safety breach, which affected over 500 million Yahoo! customers – Mayer has had her justifiable share of cringe-worthy moments.

The Enhancv staff was impressed by Mayer’s ferocious ambition and in August 2016 we created and printed her resume. It was an important drive in enabling extra customers around the globe to study our platform. Mayer’s resume was favored over 40K+ occasions on LinkedIn, with none paid ads. And the Business Insider article masking the story acquired 300K+ reads. In the present day, Enhancv boasts over 250K+ registered customers from over 150 international locations worldwide.

For this reason we have been significantly excited for the chance to fulfill Mayer and thank her in individual for the unknowing contribution she needed to Enhancv’s success. Think about how proud we felt when her face lit up with recognition and amusement as we launched ourselves. “I do know you, you probably did a fantastic job with my resume! I liked it”, she stated.

We additionally had the prospect to ask Mayer a number of questions, which we’re comfortable to share with you. Get an unique peek into the ideas of the First Woman of the Web!

What was the largest problem you tackled at Yahoo?
Undoubtedly, it was returning the corporate to its unique Nineties tradition. The Silicon Valley tendency to mix enterprise and enjoyable has its roots within the work setting created by Yahoo!’s founders – Jerry and David. The concept that the company tradition and model of an enterprise can have a that means bigger than the enterprise itself has in my opinion been one of many key elements to Yahoo!’s early success.
The problem which I confronted after I joined as CEO, was to reboot the unique tradition, whereas additionally encouraging Yahoo! staff to spend extra time on the workplace and provides that additional discretionary effort, which the corporate wanted to tug by way of.

You have been the primary Yahoo! CEO to advertise maternity depart. Why then did you cover your being pregnant for six months and why didn’t you’re taking an extended break from work following the start of your kids?
For authorized causes – within the US maternity depart technically is a incapacity depart. If I took maternity leave, I’d have needed to appoint a short lived deputy, which might have been sophisticated and complicated for the board and shareholders. I additionally felt that Yahoo! wanted me, wanted a powerful chief, who was current.

What’s your technique for coping with unhealthy press?
I comply with the recommendation an in depth good friend gave me – I don’t learn any information or articles about myself.

One query, specifically, stays on everybody’s minds. Particularly, what precipitated Yahoo!’s gradual demise?

As made apparent by the numerous achievements on Mayer’s resume, she was anticipated to over-deliver throughout her time at Yahoo!. But, the geek goddess was largely criticized for nearly each choice she ever took, whereas in cost.

It could be that expectation was set too excessive. When Mayer joined the corporate as CEO in 2012, Yahoo! staff made posters along with her image and the phrase “hope” beneath. These make-shift items of artwork have been in the same graphic fashion to the emblematic Barack Obama 2008 presidential marketing campaign. The posters have been hung throughout Yahoo! headquarters. Newspapers everywhere in the world have been blasting headlines like “Google’s First Woman Jumps Ship to Yahoo!”.

A great indication of her slim possibilities to steer the Yahoo! ship in the correct route might have been the short-lived careers of Mayer’s predecessors. She was the fourth CEO in 4 years. Her quick predecessor was taken down after it was found that he had lied on his resume.

Observers judged Mayer’s activity of saving the poster-child firm for the primary period of the Web as near unimaginable. Google’s search algorithms had been performing higher than Yahoo! staff categorizing the net by hand. Fb was doing a greater job of serving the communication wants of digital shoppers than Yahoo! chatrooms. Apps had taken site visitors away from desktop computer systems to cell phones and Yahoo! was lagging behind.

Regardless, Mayer’s title will grace the tech historical past books, whereas her life expertise will encourage younger girls and women the world over to dream huge and purpose excessive. Kudos, Marissa! Must you be in search of a job once more, we might be ready for you at www.enhancv.com.