Lifestyle

Powerful Women: Marissa Mayer

by Ally Batista

The Internet has opened up doors and given unbelievable opportunities to people around the world. As a result of this, some of the wealthiest businesspersons are executives of major Internet companies.  Marissa Ann Mayer is one of those lucky people.

Born in 1975 in Wausau, Wisconsin Marissa excelled at her studies from a young age. Post high school graduation from Wausau West High School in 1993, Mayer was chosen to be one of two delegates from the state of Wisconsin to be sent to the National Youth Science Camp in West Virginia.

Mayer continued to excel in academics in college, graduating with honors from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science in symbolic systems and a Master of Science in computer science, along with specializing in artificial intelligence, impressive!

In 1999 Mayer joined the new company Google as employee number 20 and was the company’s first female engineer, can you imagine? Mayer was with Google for 13 years and held multiple positions such as engineer, designer, product manager and executive. Mayer held key roles in Google subsidiaries such as Google Search, Google Images, Google News, Google Maps, Google Books, Google Product Search, Google Toolbar, iGoogle and Gmail.

Mayer worked her way up to Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location Services and Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. On July 26, 2012 Mayer left Google, as she was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo!.

As if she wasn’t busy enough, Mayer holds positions on the Board of Directors at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She has been placed on Fortune Magazine’s annual list of America’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 201. In 2008, she was the youngest woman ever listed, at age 33.

Mayer is happily married to lawyer and investor Zachary Bogue and is expecting her first child later this year.

Ally | Elite.

Photo Credit: Getty Images