Two Sundays ago, Yahoo! confirmed that CEO Jerry Yang will be stepping down and that the search for his replacement is underway. He had been under huge scrutiny over the past few months for not accepting Microsoft’s bid to buy out the company multiple times, which many believe is the cause for the sudden downfall of Yahoo!. Mr. Yang founded Yahoo! in 1994 in his dorm-room at Stanford (are you being entrepreneurial if you’re a student?) and was only appointed CEO in June 2007.
This is a prime example of how your personal brand can affect even the largest of corporate brands. Yang’s successor will be someone who has shown the world they are capable of taking the lead and following through in order to revitalize Yahoo!. The personal brand of the next CEO will likely shape the way that Yahoo! operates and runs on a daily basis. For the next few months, all eyes will be focused on the new CEO. Can he or she win over shareholders as well as its userbase around the world?
Mr. Yang had a vision to connect everyone on the web with a central service when the web was first created. While he still holds a seat on the board, my heart goes out to him: it’s not easy to see your baby, which he created and watched grow, be handed over to someone else. This isn’t the last we’ll see of Mr. Yang – will he go on to bigger and better things (perhaps CIO of the US)?
Who you do think will take over the reigns at Yahoo! now that Yang is gone? And what qualities will the successor’s personal brand need to have in order to turn Yahoo! around for the better?
- Author: Trace Cohen
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