Yahoo hires pregnant CEO

[grimbletart]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18876580

Any thoughts on this? Personally I love this reaction...

"It is great that Marissa Mayer is pregnant. But intensity of reaction is slightly depressing. Kind of as if they'd hired a yeti," tweeted Rebecca Traister, a New York Times journalist."

It is great. Although she's said she won't be taking any maternity leave, so it's not likely to start a debate on improving maternity rights. To be fair, I doubt I'd take much leave in her position - able to afford fantastic nannies and presumably with lots of flexibility in her hours, seeing as she's CEO. And I'm a SAHM!

Additional thought.....have you noticed that once a business is really struggling and in danger of going bust there is a tendency to hire a woman? No time to google right now but this trend has received quite a bit of publicity recently.

You wonder if it is - nothing to lose so let a woman have a go - or if it's going bust let's have a woman at the helm to blame

I realised the Yahoo job is cited in the Having it up to here.. thread but didn't want to derail the fascinating debate going on there on the wider issues by posting this link, which is specifically about hiring pregnant women in top jobs, there.

I will be very interested to see what she does after her child is born. I can't work out whether it is better for "the cause" if she carries on exactly as before, or better if she changes her mind and does take some maternity leave/try to work flexibly/etc.

The former is better in that it won't encourage naysayers to roll their eyes and brand her just another woman who mummytracks once kids arrive, the latter is better in that it's more realistic/representative and hopefully might demonstrate that even CEO positions can be done flexibly...

The comments below are unbelievably awful. I can't read more.

I've been hired while similarly pregnant - the company knew who I was, knew I could do a good job, and once I'd had DS they were fine about me working from home/bringing DS in/working shorter hours when I needed to etc. I would have felt bad taking a year entirely off (and I don't think I'd have been entitled to, since I hadn't been employed very long) but TBH I found that it was great to be able to get back to work - I think I'd have ended up doing more hobby-work if I hadn't been able to do that anyway.

BUT I'm lucky that I could do that, that DP and I both worked at the same company so we could share out the disruption, that I lived close to work so I didn't have to factor commute in, and that my job is one that can be done with a baby in tow/picked up and put down.

A lot of people don't have that. CEO I think does though.

She wasn't "hired" - she's been with the company for yonks, so this is promoted/appointed on the back of an extremely solid record.

Had they brought in a pregnant newcomer it would be more newsworthy.

The BBC say that she was hired from Google for this role?

What makes me about the comments beneath that article is that there are lot of complaints about her farming her baby out to nannies and the poor child not enjoying the full-presence of a loving parent, but no one seems to have entertained the possibility that the father might be planning on being a SAHD.

Sorry, I did get that rather spectacularly wrong.

But I hope my underlying point - an nigh-on unmatched 23 years in exactly the right posts - mean she was appointed from an unusually solid situation.

You would expect the CEO of Yahoo to be someone with a pretty solid record wouldn't you?

a female executive of FB recently said that the best career choice a girl makes is chosing a partner. in her case she chose a man who was happy to play second fiddle while her career takes center stage.

there are more and more SAHD's these days and i find that sits much more confortably than a child having an affectionate relationship with a nanny.

Woman lands job she's qualified for. Should be an utterly unremarkable story. Sad that it isn't. (And it's even sadder that yet again the stupid SAHP/WOHP is being brought up.)

the tihng that gets my goats is the comments at the bottom saying what a stupid thing this is for yahoo to have done and they shouldn't have hired a pregnant woman and pregnant women shouldn't expect to be hired / promoted under any circ ever and in fact all women should probably just leave all employment voluntarily the moment they become sexually active. Well i may have added the last bit but the rest is there.

So people's sexism is so blinding that they condemn yahoo for having made a terrible decision - a massive multinational who presumably thought about it a bit - purely on the basis that she is going to have a baby?

On that basis I say this is very good news if only to show that pregnancy / having children / being female is not an automatic barrier to success in the workplace and that not all companies are run by sexist arses.

On the flipside of that, SQ, this means that forward-thinking companies are moving away from old mind-sets. There is nothing that Yahoo can do about special individuals on the internet, but they can appoint the best person for the job. Winston Churchill once said that the best argument against democracy was a 10 minute chat with a member of the electorate . A bit harsh, maybe, but don't let the odd keyboard warrior's comment deflect from progress like this. IT companies are setting a good example for women in exec positions. Mayer is Yahoo's second CEO.

Second female CEO, obviously .

I think it's more than a few "keyboard warriors" though TBH. There are regular reports in the news about how small businesses don't want to hire women who might have a baby, the govt was I think seriously considering removing the onus on small businesses to provide mat leave, the body who represents them are always going on about how awful it is when women have babies and how it messes everything up. Loads of threads on here where I have read people - women with children usually - saying that they understand why companies don't want to hire women who might become pregnant and that is understandable and sensible. And saying how awful it is when women eg have two sets of mat leave within a few years from the same employer. I do think these views are very prevalent TBH rather than an outdated minority view.

Mayer gets $70 million pay package to lead Yahoo
Reuters 1 hour ago
New Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's compensation package could total more than $70 million in salary, bonuses, restricted stock and stock options over five years, according to a regulatory filing ...

When this kind of money is being talked about, pregnancy or lack thereof is a comparatively minor issue. Yahoo has been in trouble for years, and they're obviously desperate to get someone competent in charge.

Now they're saying as much as $100 million (1 followed by 8 zeros). That might be "an offer she can't refuse".

I would think it's far easier for a CEO who calls the shots to manage work than a pleb who is pretty much at the mercy of their boss.

It's the glass cliff thing that you're thinking of.

What's the thoughts on Yahoo cutting flexible working?

Try it is a kick in the teeth to staff who work from home. I am guessing but would think quite a few are parents who use work from home to cut childcae costs.... More Here