Todd Wasserman2013-03-29 21:30:16 UTCMarissa Mayer was originally planning a six-month maternity leave, but shortened that to two weeks after she got the CEO job at Yahoo, she revealed in a blog post on Friday.
Mayer's contribution, on Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In blog, tells the inside story of her frame of mind when Yahoo came calling:
On June 18th, I got the call.
“I’m doing a CEO search. It’s a Fortune 500 company. It’s in the consumer Internet space. It’s in Silicon Valley — you wouldn’t even have to move. It’s the perfect job for you. The board is asking for you by name. Are you interested? It’s Yahoo.”
Mayer writes that she had gotten similar calls before, but was intrigued because she was a Yahoo fan:
... this time it was Yahoo, and that changed everything. I started using Yahoo before it was even called Yahoo. Yahoo defined the Internet. They helped get Google started. Yes, they had their ups-and-downs — but, the potential was huge. The alignment with my experience and career was uncanny: search, email, homepage, news, finance, maps, social, mobile and more.
One hitch, though. Mayer was 28 weeks pregnant and looking forward to a "glorious six-month maternity leave" after 13 years at Google.
However, if I took the new job, a long leave couldn’t happen. The responsibilities were too big, and time was of the essence — it just wouldn’t be fair to the company, the employees, the board, or the shareholders for me to be in the role, but out for an extended period of time.
Despite the truncated maternity leave, Mayer reports that everything is working out fine:
I’ve now been at Yahoo for eight months, and I’m having a ball — there are great people and terrific ideas. It’s hard work, but I love to work hard. At the same time, starting a family with my husband has been all I hoped it would be and then some — joyful, intense, challenging. At five and a half months old, Macallister is tremendously fun — a big personality already. I live to spend time with him — be it to teach him sounds and songs, play a game of peek-a-boo (his latest obsession), or be his sidekick as he explores the world around him.
I’ve come to realize that being a mother makes me a better executive, because motherhood forces prioritization. Being a mom gives you so much more clarity on what is important. I’m very close to my own mother; she has always been my most important role model. I’m grateful to her and to my father for a lifetime of their love, attention, teaching and sacrifice. Over the past five short months, my appreciation has grown for all parents, especially those balancing work obligations, because I know they have that same clarity of dedication and purpose.
Of course, not everyone will be sympathetic to Mayer's situation. She has already been criticized for building a nursery for her child in the office while famously forbidding other Yahoo employees from working from home.
Image via Getty, Johannes Eisele
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