Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer joined Google in 1999 as the company’s first female engineer. Today, she leads the company’s product management and design efforts for search and search properties as well as the overall user experience, including the Google.com homepage. Google’s search product portfolio includes web search, images, news, books, products, maps, toolbar, iGoogle, and more. She also works with the company’s user experience team, developing designs and setting standards for the look-and-feel that keep the company’s products simple, intuitive, and useful.

Marissa serves as Co-Chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. She also is a member of the board of trustees for the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Her contributions and leadership have been recognized by numerous publications including Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, Portfolio, and The New York Times. In 2008, at 33, Marissa became the youngest woman ever to be included on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s list (#50).

Concurrently with her full-time work, Marissa has taught introductory computer programming classes at Stanford University, which has recognized her with the Centennial Teaching Award and the Forsythe Award for her outstanding contributions to undergraduate education. Marissa earned both her B.S. in Symbolic Systems and her M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford, specializing in artificial intelligence for both degrees. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.