Carol Bartz confirmed as Yahoo chief as president Susan Decker quits

Yahoo has confirmed the appointment of former Autodesk boss Carol Bartz as its new chief executive, and announced that its president, Susan Decker, will leave the company after almost nine years.

Bartz, 60, has been given a seat on the Yahoo board and takes up her role at the troubled internet company immediately.

"There is no denying that Yahoo has faced enormous challenges over the last year," Bartz said. "But I believe there is now an extraordinary opportunity to create value for our shareholders and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees. We will seize that opportunity."

Bartz's appointment ends a two-month hunt for a replacement for Jerry Yang, who takes the role of "chief Yahoo", during which there was speculation about the job being taken by former AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller, News Corporation president Peter Chernin, former Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin or former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman.

The Yahoo chairman, Roy Bostock, said that Bartz combined the right mix of technology experience, leadership and respect in the financial markets.

"She is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the board was looking for," Bostock said. "She is admired in the [Silicon] Valley as well as on Wall Street for her deep management expertise, strong customer orientation, excellent people skills and firm understanding of the challenges facing our industry."

Bostock underlined Yahoo's support for Bartz by saying that she was the only candidate that had been offered the role.

Bartz was chief executive of software design firm Autodesk for 14 years and was made executive chairman in 2006. She is also on the board of Cisco and Intel.

Yahoo veteran Susan Decker, the leading internal candidate, will leave the company after a "transitional period".

Yahoo has been under enormous pressure to turn the business around since rejecting a $44bn (£30bn) takeover bid, at more than $30 a share, from Microsoft in February 2008. Microsoft was also looking at a deal to buy just Yahoo's search advertising operation.

The company's share price closed at $12.10 yesterday.

Yahoo has had to endure heavy criticism from dissident investor Carl Icahn, who eventually forced his way on to the board along with two of his nominees.

Its attempt to fend off Microsoft, an attempted search advertising partnership with Google, failed in November after the US Department of Justice indicated that it would block the agreement on competition grounds.

Yahoo's board has continued to look at a number of strategic options, including a deal with Time Warner's AOL operation, in which Google holds a 10% stake.

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