Marissa Mayer
The mark of a genius is her ability to transcend requirements, positions and stereotypes. Marissa Mayer falls nothing short of the category. Currently the Vice President of Google’s Search Products & User Experience, she is progress’ champion at the company that represents innovation at its core. Under her critical eye, several features have made Google a necessity for its millions of users. Among these revolutionary products are Google Earth, web search, news, books, images, maps, Google Desktop, Google Labs, Google Health and the all-accessible Google Toolbar. Over the years she has pioneered defining Google News and Gmail, brought the site to the global level by offering it in over 100 languages, developing and designing Google’s search interface as well as cumulatively introducing over 100 products and features on Google.com.
Growing up in small Wausau, Wisconsin, Marissa Mayer was definitely one with bigger-than-life ambitions. Choosing Stanford University over the other Ivy League schools that wanted her, she majored in Symbolic Systems and graduated with honors. Marissa Mayer proceeded to finish with a M.S. in Computer Science from the same institution. Specializing in artificial intelligence, she spent some time as a researcher in the USB research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich, Switzerland, and at SRI International in Menlo Park, California.
At the time, she was being eyed for a number of high profile positions in companies such as a job with top consulting authority McKinsey to a teaching job with the esteemed Carnegie Mellon University. Marissa Mayer decided to take a risk and go with the visionaries who were laying the foundations of Google. She went on board as the 20th hired employee and the company’s first female engineer in 1999.
Marissa Mayer has turned heads in media as well, as she became the subject of many prominent publications: Business 2.0 (“Silicon Valley Dream Team”), Newsweek (“10 Tech Leaders of the Future”), Red Herring (“15 Women to Watch”), Fortune, Fast Company, and BusinessWeek. Newsweek has even named her “one of the most powerful women of her generation.”
One of her innovations that has created a considerable impact in the realm of philanthropy is a product of the customizability feature in Google’s home page and e-mail. For many years, the company has been satisfied with its minimalist and conservative white screen background. But with Marissa Mayer and Michaela Prescott’s efforts, users can now opt to display a banner or theme of the charitable institutions they support. Donation links are also enabled in the new offering. Some of the non-profit organizations that the company is working with include Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam America, Ashoka, Save the Children, and Heifer International.