Yahoo Mayer to adopt new strategy, Rethers become key person

According to foreign media reports, Yahoo CEO Marissa (Marissa Mayer) is implementing a strategy to use external acquisitions to revive the company's performance growth. and private-equity professionals Jacqueline Rethers Jacqueline Reses is the key to the success of Ms. Mayer's strategy.

Last fall, Yahoo's merger and acquisition activity has begun to accelerate since Ms. Mayer hired Jacqueline Rethers to be the top executive of Yahoo's talent management, partner and merger deals. The 43-Year-old Rethers has played a pivotal role in many of Yahoo's takeover deals since then. As America's largest portal, Yahoo has been trying to reshape itself and follow the current pace of mobile internet development. Ms. Mayer said in a media interview that Rethers's mandate had been extended to partners and cultural development, and this week the latter was named Yahoo's chief development officer (figuratively Development officer).

As Yahoo's CEO nears a year, Ms. Mayer has been speeding up the pace of Yahoo's transformation, making it a stronger competitor for Google (Weibo) and Facebook for users, advertisers and employees. In this process, the role of Rethers is of paramount importance. Yahoo now has about 6 billion dollars in cash and cash equivalents. As a result, the biggest challenge for Rethers in external acquisitions is the ability to find acquisitions that specialize in the development of cool technology, and these new technologies will make Yahoo's home page and services more appealing.

"Ms. Mayer is trying to get talent back to Yahoo and let Yahoo recreate its past life and vitality in Silicon Valley," Kein Sex Gene Sykes, Goldman Sachs Group's global mergers and acquisitions chief, said in a media interview. One way to achieve this is to buy startups and integrate the latter. ”

Talent Scramble

Yahoo must convince young software professionals who enter the company through external acquisitions to take part in the company's development. A few weeks ago, Yahoo bought the news aggregation start-up Summly, a 17-Year-old chief executive, Nick Deloisio (Nick D ' Aloisio), for a 30 million-dollar price. However, comparing the power of the company's human resources to the takeover director seems more plausible than relying on the young CEO who has not mastered the core technology.

Before Ms. Mayer's arrival, hundreds of of Yahoo's leading executives and engineers had switched to rivals for attractive stakes and a more comfortable office environment. "This has evolved into a scramble for talent and great innovation," said Kevin Stadtler, Stadtler Capital Management, an investment agency. These rivals are sitting on billions of of billions of dollars to acquire the talent of the digital media industry. ”

Last July, Mayer became Yahoo's fifth CEO for nearly four years. Since then, Yahoo has acquired 6 start-up companies, including Stamped Inc., Ontheair, snip.it, alike, Jybe Inc. and Summly. So far, Ms. Mayer has always attached great importance to the acquisition of talent by buying small development teams at low prices.

In the process of completing the above acquisition, Rethers has played a very important role. She worked for Goldman Sachs and has been working for the past decade with Apax Parnters LLP, a prominent European private equity firm.

Rethers also drafted a memo, which was launched in February this year by Yahoo's employees, which severely limits the scope of the work done by employees at home. The policy shift has renewed a nationwide debate on flexible and flexitime. Proponents argue that flexible work can boost productivity, while opponents argue that working in the Office enhances cooperation and innovation.

Brian Wieser, an investment agency pivotal new york-based analyst Blaine Vizey, said Yahoo's focus on small-engineer teams and small-scale acquisitions also required time to focus on larger, more market-changing acquisitions. Social networking sites like Tumblr and Pinterest, and Yelp Inc. and AOL Inc..

Rich experience in mergers and acquisitions

Ms Mayer said in a media interview: "Rethers is mainly responsible for the company's four aspects of development work, is the talent development, cultural development, partner development and corporate development plans." ”

Rethers, the head of the Apax US media Group, is responsible for a number of acquisitions, including the company's 2005 $5.2 billion acquisition of satellite service providers Intelsat and the 2007 $7.75 billion acquisition of textbook Publishers Cengage Learning Inc.

Mark Patricof, co-founder of the investment bank Mesa Global, Mark Patrikov, noted that Rethers was renowned for its focus on technology and product details in the process of assessing and completing transactions. During Rethers's tenure at Apax, Patrikov had dealings with her. "As a private equity partner, Rethers has a strong curiosity that makes her look more like a junior investor," says Patrikov. She always asks a lot of questions. ”

Rethers also brought this kind of good asking spirit to Yahoo. According to foreign-media compiled statistics, the slowest-growing U.S. internet company's market value of only more than 1 billion U.S. dollars. Yahoo's revenue growth is likely to be just 1.8% over the next four years, while other big internet companies expect the median revenue growth to reach 74% in the same period.

Ms. Mayer points out that she met Rethers when she was looking for a director of human resources for Yahoo. Ms. Mayer was impressed by Rethers's rich experience in dealing with large mergers and acquisitions involving thousands of of employees. "Rethers has a unique insight into how to integrate the company from a private equity perspective that fits Yahoo's current needs," Ms. Mayer said in a media interview. ”

The new engineer Force helps Yahoo expand its mobile software market, controlled by Google and Apple, and enhance its ability to sell ads and personalize content for its users.

Regular briefings on the latest developments

According to sources, Yahoo every week at the headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, held a trading review meeting to discuss the use of cash companies. At a regular meeting chaired by Mayer, Rethers will report on the latest developments in the company's potential acquisitions and ongoing acquisitions.

The lack of human resources management experience could be a hindrance to Rethers development, according to sources who have been working with Rethers. The source said that at a meeting to discuss staff remuneration, Rethers that Yahoo paid the salaries of senior staff relatively reasonable, while other executives expressed concern for rivals such as Apple and LinkedIn who have been using high-paying tactics to poach Yahoo talent.

Spencer Raskov Spencer Rascoff, the online real estate website Zillow.com Inc., also worked with Rethers. "Given that Rethers has never managed a human resources department before, some people may think her stance is contrary to tradition," says Rashkov. But iconoclastic is exactly what Yahoo needs right now. ”

Lock in a large acquisition target

In the 90 's, Rethers at Goldman Sachs as vice president of the investment Division. Goldman Sachs says Rethers will take full advantage of the rich experience she has accumulated at Goldman Sachs.

Wiese, of Pivotal, also said Yahoo might be locking up a larger acquisition target. In addition to Tumblr, Pinterest, Yelp and AOL, Wiese points out that Yahoo might consider acquiring Foursquare Labs Inc., Microsoft's MSN and Advertising technology company Millennial Media Inc., JumpTap Inc., Rubicon Project, and PubMatic Inc. The press spokesmen of the companies declined to comment on the Yahoo deal.

According to a report published by the technology website AllThingsD, Rethers said at a staff meeting at the end of February that Yahoo was making two "big" acquisitions. Last month, foreign media reported that Yahoo was negotiating with France Telecom to negotiate a 300 million-dollar purchase of its video site Dailymotion up to 75% per cent of its holding stake.

To facilitate potential acquisitions, Rethers plans to relocate the family from New York to the San Francisco Bay Area. Last month, she had hired a venture capitalist to help her manage the mergers and acquisitions business in New York.

After pioneering the creation of a chief development officer, Ms. Mayer said she hoped the move would profoundly affect the industry's understanding of talent development. "Rethers may be the world's first chief development officer, and there will certainly be more chief development officers emerging," Mayer said. ”