Yahoo Security Spending For Ceo Marissa Mayer Rose As She Faced Threats

Original Story: siliconbeat.com

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer faced “credible” threats in 2015 that caused the company to drastically boost its spending on security for her and her family.

The Sunnyvale company spent $544,061 for security for Mayer last year, according to recent company filings, including one Monday. That compares with $26,891 in 2014.

Mayer, who’s been under fire from shareholders over the direction of one of Silicon Valley’s iconic companies, in 2015 “faced specific security threats that we believed were credible,” the company said in its filings, without specifying the threats.

Calling Mayer an embattled CEO might be understating it a bit; analysts, investors and the media have scrutinized her every move since the former Google executive took the helm of Yahoo in 2012 — after other CEOs before her failed to bring back the company’s mojo amid the rise of mobile, Google, Facebook and Yahoo’s own missteps.

The company said in the filing that it provides security services for Mayer and her immediate family (she has a husband and three kids) in addition to the business-related security services it pays for, “and that the reported amount of security expense is especially reasonable in light of the fact that Ms. Mayer does not ask the Company to reimburse her private aircraft costs for business travel.”

A Yahoo spokeswoman told SiliconBeat the company would have no additional comment.

This latest figure comes on the heels of other reports based on recent Yahoo filings, including how much Mayer made last year ($36 million, a 15 percent decline from the previous year), and how much she might make if the company is sold and she is fired. Under pressure from activist shareholders who recently grabbed seats on the board, the company is considering bids now, which are reportedly coming in lower than expected.

Back to the security costs: The amount Yahoo spent wasn’t unusual or outrageous compared with what other tech companies have spent on security for their top executives. For example, Pat May wrote last month about how much Facebook and Twitter shelled out in 2015 for security for Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey: $4.3 million, $1.2 million and $68,500, respectively. According to a filing, Apple spent $209,151 last year on security for CEO Tim Cook.

YAHOO CEO TAKES HEAT FOR STILTED PRESENTATION IN CANNES

Original Story:  USAToday.com

CANNES, France — This is an advertising conference, so some spinning and selling is expected. Yet, a Tuesday presentation from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was flagged by some attendees as an excessively hard sell.

Audience members took to Twitter to criticize Mayer's speech as being stilted and overly promotional for Yahoo.

"Yahoo CEO at Cannes — am I at a sales pitch??" said Jim Donaldson, tweeting under ?@jdonaldson1.

Uwe Gutschow, tweeting under ?@uweg, said Mayer was "doing a hard sell on Yahoo," and she should "know your audience."

Bruce Rogers, tweeting under ?@Brogers825, said "Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer reads from script, says nothing new."

During her scripted talk at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Mayer highlighted Yahoo's assets such as social-media blogging site Tumblr, which it acquired last year.

She provided the packed audience with examples of advertiser campaigns on Yahoo properties and highlighted the site's digital magazines.

She also talked about art, as well as trends in areas such as mobile, video, social media and native advertising.

Mayer played up to the egos of the ad industry audience by noting that commercials are often more interesting than programming, saying that ads can be "30-second stories."

The Yahoo chief was one of more than 300 speakers at this festival, which is the advertising industry's biggest awards competition and trade show.

Traditionally, festival speakers are more uninhibited. For example, in the middle of being interviewed on stage Monday, filmmaker Spike Jonze turned to the audience and asked the crowd to ask him questions.

On Sunday, Baywatch star David Hasselhoffran  walked through the audience carrying a red buoy just before he took to the stage. After that presentation, Hasselhoff readily took pictures with attendees that rushed the stage to snap his image.

Mayer (Yahoo) Looking for Mobile Growth

Article first appeared on CNBC -

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is confident that her company will be able to capitalize on the explosion in mobile communication, saying Yahoo will focus on strong partnerships with Apple, Google and Facebook.

"The nice thing at Yahoo is we have all of the content that people want on their phones. We have these daily habits. Whenever you're dealing with a daily habit, and really providing a lot of value around it,there's an opportunity," Mayer said at the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland on Friday.

"There's really an opportunity for strong partnerships. That's what we'll be focused on. So we work with for example Apple and Google in terms of the operating system. In terms of the social network we have a strong partnership with Facebook," she said.

She played down mobile privacy concerns, saying it would always be "something users should consider."

"But I also think that privacy is always a trade-off. When you give up some of your personal information, you get some functionality in return. It's really about making those trade-offs in a very informed way," she said.