By Xinhua,
San Francisco : Yahoo Inc. is expected to name Carol Bartz, former head of software company Autodesk, as its next chief executive officer (CEO), Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Bartz, 60, has accepted Yahoo’s offer, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the situation.
The offer caps Yahoo’s two-month search for a leader to succeed Jerry Yang, its co-founder and former CEO, who oversaw the company through an acquisition offer from Microsoft and activist investor Carl Icahn’s failed attempt to replace the Yahoo board.
Yang, 40, announced last November that he will step down as Yahoo’s CEO as soon as a replacement is found.
Analysts said Yang’s resignation was due to growing anger among investors who thought Yang made a serious mistake by rejecting Microsoft’s bid to buy out Yahoo.
Bartz will face a number of challenges as she tries to turn around Yahoo’s flagging performance and stock price, the Journal said.
Bartz served as chief executive of Autodesk from 1992 to 2006. Autodesk is around half the size of Yahoo, with approximately 7,000 employees worldwide.
She was also an executive at Sun Microsystems Inc. and sits on the boards of Cisco Systems Inc. and Intel Corp.