Kirsten Ulve
Marissa Mayer
Managing innovation at Google is an unusual task. Executives give scant direction to the legions of engineers, who typically pursue the projects that excite them most. Google’s challenge: Pluck the best ideas out of the engineering ether and nurture them into successful products.
Few managers are as adept at this as Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice-president for search products and its 20th or so hire. A programmer by trade, Mayer seeks techies out on their own turf, such as the snack and coffee station outside her office. She also ferrets out promising ideas by holding open office hours three times a week. Mayer, 30, has helped identify and launch key products such as Google’s desktop search software and its social networking site. Her challenge, however, will only grow steeper in coming months: Google now has more than 5,000 employees.