Felice Shapiro
If you don’t know Marissa Mayer, she’s the beautiful and brilliant 38 year old CEO Of Yahoo who is reviving their stock price and believes in niche digital magazines. So right there, speaking as a publisher of an on-line niche magazine, it may sound a tad self-serving to say we LOVE this CEO — but it’s more than “she’s one of us.”
There’s no question that our demo loves to cozy up to a good read – not just flit from Twitter to Instagram — we are still gluttons for a “story” that transports us. This is why digital niche magazines are becoming Mayer’s focus. Plus, Mayer is putting an authentic voice to her on-line mags — she’s actually hiring boomer women as a voice in her empire.
One of our favorites is Katie Couric (57 years old). Yahoo just made her chief global anchor (what a great title). Does anyone else in the world hold that title? It almost sounds presidential. We BA50’s are thrilled to see that Katie is back in the forefront of interviewing and did not become invisible. Katie is one of us (a BA50) and she continues to be extremely relevant.
Also, Yahoo just hired the BA50 make-up guru and favorite boomer Bobbi Brown as editor of Yahoo Beauty. We know that Bobbi Brown speaks to us honestly and optimistically – a combination we relish.
These star power boomers’ voices speak for our niche and BA50 women are thrilled to follow them on Yahoo.
Marissa knows that “Americans over 50 control 77 percent of the total net worth and have nearly $46 trillion of wealth – and that by 2030, one in 3 Americans will be over 50. So she, is putting her funding behind this demo by giving them a public voice. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/profit-aging-baby-boomers-181051199.html
BA50 loves Marissa also because she is another woman in business leader role model for our kids and for ourselves – and we need more women leaders to be sure.
Hey did you know the Fortune 500 ranking of the 500 largest corporations in the United States included 12 women CEO’s in 2011, 18 in 2012, 23 in 2013 and 24 in 2014. And technically Yahoo isn’t in the Fortune 500, but actually it’s ranked #502 and that’s where we can find Marissa Mayer – Woman CEO #26. Women are making their mark but it’s a slow crawl to be sure.
Marissa is a stand-out in the media world man-o-sphere – (except for Gannett’s Gracia Martore) and turning stock prices up when they had been falling and falling for Yahoo. She is doing this by spending money on the what’s next. We love that. Hey – that’s what every woman we know hitting the mid-life mark does – we focus on our what’s next.
So, this week I wanted to take a moment and give a big nod to Marissa Mayer. And speaking of nods – I wanted to make sure not to over focus on what the Wall Street Journal ripped her on – and that was — well did you read about it?
Turns out Marissa overslept (yes big nod) and missed meeting up with key advertisers from the Inter Public Group in Cannes. She was two hours late and she got front paged (is that a verb?) She felt badly about it – and she apologized – publicly!
Marissa – we BA50s would not beat you up for tardiness. We know you were “late” because you overslept (note to file — you’d traveled 20 hours and have a one-year-old) but we don’t care that you were late – you know why?
- Because at 50 we know that we can run late too – not because we are rude and thoughtless – but because we are human and we sometimes can’t remember our keys or where we parked our car and it takes time to get our the door.
- At 50 we know that multi-tasking can take a toll and running a media empire – raising a kid and satisfying stockholders entitles you to a late hall pass every so often.
- And it’s ok to be late – because when you apologize so graciously and honestly, we realize that even in the top levels of corporate America – not everyone is perfect (some even go to jail)– and being fallible makes you easier to emulate.
Marissa, BA50 wants to give you a shout out and thank you for paying attention to boomers. We are thrilled you support our niche. And most importantly — we are hoping you continue to forge ahead on the minority woman CEO track giving our kids a woman they can emulate and strive to be.
Bravo, Marissa Mayer – keep on keeping on – and continue to show us what’s possible.