Report: Longtime Google Exec Marissa Mayer Will Be Yahoo’s New CEO

Marissa Mayer, the technology executive who has worked at Google since the search company’s earliest days, has been appointed CEO of Yahoo, according to a new report from the New York Times.

This is breaking news, and there has not been confirmation from Yahoo yet. It’s interesting that the company would put out this news through an exclusive with one media outlet, rather than an official press release or other more general announcement. But then again, it’s been a tough few years for Yahoo — and its last CEO Scott Thompson departed under less than ideal terms — so the company is clearly being very careful about its PR strategy.

There’s no question that Marissa Mayer is certainly a catch for Yahoo’s executive leadership. After receiving a B.S. in symbolic systems and her M.S. in computer science from Stanford (no fudged engineering credentials here) she started at Google in 1999 as the company’s 20th employee and its first female engineer. Since then she has stayed on with the company and served as one of its most public faces, making appearances on the tech conference circuit, network television morning shows, evening news casts such as Charlie Rose, and even as a TechCrunch Disrupt judge. Most recently, Mayer has served as Google’s vice president of location and local services.

We’ll be updating this post as more information becomes available.