Is Carol Bartz the right choice for Yahoo? BNET’s Corner Office is not the only place where the question’s been raised. Reactions to the search engine’s choice of successor for Jerry Yang were described in Lex as “indifferent”, while TechCrunch is sceptical about her and Gordon’s Republic pessimistic — (her lack of Web 2.0 and advertising experience leaves Yahoo! in no better a position than it was under Yang.)
Why the lukewarm (or negative) response? It seems that Bartz’s steady, but unshowy, leadership record has left investors and observers underwhelmed. (When her appointment was first announced, news stories were accompanied by an out-of-date picture of her. Doesn’t that suggest a refreshing lack of interest in personal promotion?)
No-one’s questioning her operational experience. Bartz’s career includes stints as Scott McNealy’s number two at Sun Microsystems, as well as work at 3M and Digital Equipment Corporation. She spent 14 years as CEO of specialist software business Autodesk, where she grew the business substantially and turned things around twice (when she joined and again during the dotcom boom.) In fact, the implication is that Bartz is too ’safe’ a CEO for Yahoo — her organisational ability seen as the wrong skill set for the rudderless search engine business.
But where Yahoo! lacked a decisive leader, it now has a plain-spoken, able CEO who’s not afraid to crack (executive) skulls if necessary.
Critics are concerned that she’s not led a business of Yahoo’s size, nor in its sector, and lacks specific experience of advertising (the main source of Yahoo’s revenue) — hardly insurmountable issues.
Lack of experience didn’t prevent Richard Branson from starting up an airline — although he did suffer investor scepticism and, blaming short-termism for the Virgin Group’s stockmarket underperformance in the 1980s, took the company private. (Now there’s an idea.) Sir Christopher Gent was plan old computer-services boss Chris when he took the top seat at Racal Vodafone, a business he went on to revolutionise.
Bartz may be there to groom the business for offers, or she may be planning something more transformational. Detractors indicate that she’s taken a job rumoured to have been turned down by former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, former AOL boss John Miller and Peter Chernin of News Corporation.
But Bartz herself sounds like she knows what she’s doing. Yahoo, she says, has enormous assets, but “frankly could use a little management”. She’s there to carve out some “breathing room” for the business so it can “kick some butt.” Sounds like a plan.
