It seem Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will be staying with the company…at least for now.
In a statement following the Monday announcement that Verizon will acquire the troubled Internet company for $4.83 billion, Mayer said she is “planning to stay.”
“I’m incredibly proud of everything that we’ve achieved, and I’m incredibly proud of our team,” Mayer said. “For me personally, I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter.”
According to Verizon’s Monday announcement, the telecommunications giant plans to integrate Yahoo’s assets – including its email service, content brands and advertising technology – with its other Internet acquisition, AOL.
But while Mayer may stay in the short term through the transition, the fate of her role in the longer term appears to be uncertain.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Verizon’s AOL CEO Tim Armstrong – who previously worked with Mayer at Google – said “we’ve been going on-the-fly” but a time will come when he and Mayer will have to “really work on what roles are going to be there.”
In her four years as Yahoo CEO, Mayer has received more than $162 million in salary payments and stock awards. Should she exit the company, Mayer stands to gain a severance package of around $55 million, $3 million of which is cash.
There’s still time, though, for Mayer and Armstrong to work through things. Verizon said its deal with Yahoo is not expected to close until the first quarter of 2017.
