Yahoo adds Maggie Wilderotter to its Board

By Calvin Azuri

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Yahoo has been undergoing a sea change in its management, as senior executives keep coming in and going out.

The company is rumored to be losing its edge to rivals like Google (News - Alert) and there have complaints about Yahoo not being awake and seizing market opportunities. Analysts in the industry were expecting Jerry Yang to bring in new executives to give the company a new look and new direction.

Amidst these rumors, veteran telecommunications executive Maggie Wilderotter has joined Yahoo as a director. After co-founder Yang took over as chief executive officer last month, many more changes are expected and this is the first. It is opined that Yang is trying to infuse fresh thinking into the company by hiring new people.

Although Wilderotter doesn’t have a lot of experience in web search and online communications, she has rich experience in the communications industry. Her experience as the chairman and CEO of Stamford, Conn.-based Citizens Communications (News - Alert), which provides telephone and Internet service in more than 20 states, is a prime example of this. In a career spanning more than 25 years, Wilderotter has earned her experience by working for some of the reputed names in communication industry.


Yang said in a published report that Wilderotter’s unique and in-depth understanding of consumers, business, and technology will make her instrumental in helping to provide valuable insight for Yahoo's key initiatives across the entire organization.

Even after being the most popular web site in the world, Yahoo has to face increasing competition from the likes of Google and Facebook in domains such as search engine marketing and social networking. One of the alleged reasons for this is the company’s inability to identify and seize new opportunities. As a result, Yahoo's stock price is down by 40 percent since the end of 2005. Yahoo shares fell 54 cents to $23.49 Friday.

Yahoo board's came under severe criticism earlier this year when the company’s previous CEO, Terry Semel laughed all the way to the bank with rich remuneration. In 2006, Semel received a compensation package valued at $71.7 million. This is the highest compensation given to any CEO among the 386 publicly held companies covered in an Associated Press analysis of nation's top corporate paychecks.

According to Web traffic analysis companies (including Alexa Internet and Netcraft), Yahoo! has been the most visited Web site on the Internet, with more than 412 million unique users. The global network of Yahoo! websites received 3.4 billion page views per day on average as of October 2005, making it one of the most visited U.S. Web sites.

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Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.