Quote:
“Be the change you wish to see in the World.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Favorite Moment(s):
Hmm...it’s tough to narrow it down! One of my favorites was when I was able to travel to Bangalore, India. I joined the Y! India team to help launch a marketing campaign for a new Search experience called “
Glue.” It was one of the first times that I truly experienced how “global” we are as a company. We traveled to several college campuses to demo the product and with every visit, we met people that were so enthusiastic about the Yahoo! brand and the opportunity to work with us in shaping this new product. I always love interacting with consumers, but this was certainly one Yahoo! moment I’ll remember for a long time.
What have you done to be a better Yahoo?
I’ve found it really important to support all of the other groups in the company. One piece of advice I have for anyone just starting out at Yahoo! would be to attend as many “Have a Seat” sessions and other similar presentations as you can. You get to see the best of Yahoo!, and you can even start to imagine how you could integrate your own work with other projects around the company. Ultimately, these cross-Yahoo! experiences help our consumers to get the most out of their internet experience.
Are you able to think big at Yahoo? How?
Absolutely. The team that I work on, called “Front Doors” in Yahoo! slang, is responsible for the
Yahoo! homepage,
My Yahoo!,
Buzz,
Toolbar, and many other big Yahoo! properties. Every single day, I know that our work will be seen by hundreds of millions of people. I think what’s even more exciting about it is that we have to innovate to stay ahead of the rest of the internet. Only the biggest ideas will be suitable for the biggest internet audiences!
What specific Yahoo! project has made the biggest impact on you and why?
During my first year, I managed a project called “Top Trends in Search.” It was an annual review of the most searched-for queries throughout the year, and was a legacy project at Yahoo! for 7 years. I think the reason why this was such an impactful project for me was because I could literally see how the world reacted to happenings and events during the previous 12 months. The project was a fascinating indicator of what people found interesting, what they wanted to learn more about, and in some cases, what was going to be mass-media news tomorrow. Just by watching search trends, we could see the predictive nature of our audience in identifying trends before they hit mainstream media.
What surprised you most about your internship at Yahoo and why?
I was always surprised at the amount of responsibility and accountability I had during my internship. For my internship, I built an ad campaign and tested it on
Yahoo! Answers. As a soon-to-be senior in college, I was forced to stretch myself to learn, lead, and execute all at the same time. It gave me a great taste of what Yahoo! would be like as a full-time Yahoo, and made me hungry for more!
What made you choose Yahoo! as a place to work?
For me, no other place offers the opportunity to create experiences for an audience as big as Yahoo!’s, period. Of course with that opportunity comes an incredible challenge. Any idea that improves our consumers’ experience is big…any change is even bigger. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel challenged in what I’m doing, and I knew that Yahoo! was the place where I could take that challenge and make it my own.
