You could have knocked me over with a feather. Marissa Mayer, Google’s employee #20, one of Google’s public faces, and VP in charge of Google’s Maps, among other projects,, is now Yahoo’s CEO. Good for her and good for Yahoo!

I think this will be a good move for both her and the long beleaguered Yahoo.

First, for Yahoo:

1) Innovative Leadership: Mayer wasn’t just Google’s first woman engineer and developer. She’s the person who’s largely responsible for Google’s best known and well-regarded looks: such as the unadorned Google search page. Mayer isn’t just another suit, she’s an innovative ideas person and Yahoo is a company that has been sadly lacking in ideas for the last few years.

2) Respectable Leadership: When the last CEO, Scott Thompson, resigned after it was revealed that he had lied on his resume, Yahoo had become a joke. One CEO after another had come, cut jobs, made bad deals, and then been kicked out the door. Mayer is well-known and respected in the industry. She’s not the  “improve the bottom line for the next quarter by firing staffers” kind of executive that Yahoo has had in recent years.

Five reasons why Marissa Mayer’s move to Yahoo is great. More >