Mayer is Yahoo's fifth CEO in five years. (Wikimedia Commons)

Mayer, who was employee No. 20 at Google, has been responsible for some of the company’s most popular features such as the white search homepage, Gmail, Google News and Google Images, The New York Times reported. She is considered a major pick-up for Yahoo, which is struggling to keep pace with competitors like Google and Facebook and has seen its shares fall 41 percent over the last five years.

More from The New York Times:

“As she hashes out Yahoo’s strategy, Ms. Mayer said she was intent on leveraging the Internet company’s strong franchises including e-mail, finance and sports. She also hopes to do more with its video broadband and its mobile businesses.
Still, Ms. Mayer is unlikely to try to make Yahoo a direct competitor to Google in the world of search. In 2009, Yahoo gave up its search engine and partnered with Microsoft, which was seen by some analysts as a concession that it couldn’t compete.”

Mayer is Yahoo’s fifth CEO in five years. The company’s most recent CEO, Scott Thompson, resigned after only four months on the job when questions surfaced about whether he lied about academic credentials.

Read the full New York Times story here, or follow more of Neon Tommy's coverage of Yahoo here.

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