By: Isabel Gonçalves
Yahoo recently announced new chief executive and former Google executive, Marissa Mayer, will receive up to $100 million in compensation, stock, bonus and retention awards over the next five years, according to a regulatory filing made on Thursday.
Mayer's pay package is broken out into $1 million in annual salary and $42 million in stock options and other awards. She will also receive $14 million in "make whole restricted options" for forfeiture of compensation from Google Inc.
In Yahoo's offer letter to Mayer, filed Thursday afternoon, it showed that Mayer will receive $5.4 million for the remainder of the year and around $20 million per year after that.
Here is a breakdown of the filing:
Annual:
Base salary: $1 million
Bonus: $2 million to $4 million
Equity awards: $12 million
One-time:
Make-whole payment (for stock left behind at Google): $14 million
Retention: $30 million
Mayer, 37 years old, joined Yahoo as CEO on Tuesday after a 13-year career at rival search engine giant Google where she most recently served as a vice president of local, maps and location services. Mayer is Google employee number 20 and was the company's first female engineer. Her net worth is believed to be $300 million, according to therichest.org.
Mayer is Yahoo's fifth CEO in five years and some are skeptical of her ability to turn the company around.
"It's an incredible challenge," said management consultant Kevin Coyne, who teaches business strategy at Emory University, according to WSJ. "If she succeeds, it will be a landmark case for women everywhere." Coyne says she has a lot on her plate; pregnancy, age and limited management track record and time will tell whether she can turn Yahoo around.
On the same day of announcing her appointment to Yahoo, Mayer tweeted that she and husband, investor Zachary Bogue, were expecting their first child, a boy, in October. Mayer said Yahoo directors knew about her pregnancy during the hiring process. She plans to take a short maternity leave and has pledged to work through it.
Some reacted enthusiastically while, others seem to see it as an opportunity to continue the fight for better workplace policies for women. Anne-Marie Slaughter, author of The Atlantic's recent cover story, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," replied to one tweet about the new CEO: "Some women can [have it all], absolutely. & I applaud her! but she makes my point. She's superhuman, rich, & in charge. Still need change!"
Yahoo is struggling to bounce back from years of financial decline and internal turmoil. Jerry Yang, one of Yahoo's co-founders and CEO's from June 2007 to January 2009, had been criticized by many investors, including Carl Icahn, for not increasing revenues and stock price, while there has been a exodus of executives.
In January 2009, Yahoo appointed Carol Bartz, the former executive chairman of Autodesk, as CEO. She was then replaced by CFO Tim Morse in September 2011 when he was named Interim CEO.
Earlier in January this year, Scott Thompson, former President of PayPal, was named the new chief executive officer. He was later replaced in May by Ross Levinsohn as the company's interim CEO. Thompson left the company after activist shareholders revealed that he had exaggerated his academic credentials. Jerry Yang left the company and resigned from the board in January this year.
