Daily Archives: May 14, 2012

Yahoo needs a tandem hire.

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The two most important titles at any large public company are CEO and CMO.  The former is the owner of “now” and all business metrics.  The latter owns the future and the money making machinery. When these two positions are in alignment and share a challenge, things should work wonderfully.  When at odds or working cross purposes, things become interesting, exciting and pregnant with possibility. If there is respect, this is a good situation. But when the two titles are ships passing in the night, the company is either lazy, lopsided or in danger.

Operations, HR, finance, customer, sales are all vital to a company success, but they feed at the trough of leadership and product strategy.  That comes from the CEO and the CMO.  In my mind, Yahoo’s problem in the C-level suite is tied to a weakness in the marketing area.  Yahoo doesn’t have an Is-Does. Yahoo is a company of lots of Ises and lots of Doeses. The way out of the problem at this point is to find two people who can work together to solve this thing.  A tandem hire is needed. Peace!