Marissa Mayer Full Biography

About

Marissa Ann Mayer (pronounced /ˈmaɪər/;) is the current President and CEO of Yahoo! since July 2012. Previously, she was a long-time executive and key spokesperson for Google. Mayer was ranked eighth on the list of America's most powerful businesswomen of 2013 by Fortune magazine.

Career 

Google 

Mayer joined Google in 1999 as employee number 20 and was the company's first female engineer. During her 13 years with the company, she was an engineer, designer, product manager and executive. Mayer held key roles in Google Search, Google Images, Google News, Google Maps, Google Books, Google Product Search, Google Toolbar, iGoogle, and Gmail. She also oversaw the layout of Google's well-known, unadorned search homepage. In her final years with Google, she was Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location Services and, before that, vice president of search products and user experience. 

Yahoo! 

On July 16, 2012, Mayer was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo!, effective the following day. She is also a member of the company's board of directors. 

In 2013, Mayer ranked 32 in the Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. Also in 2013, Mayer became the first woman listed as number one on Fortune magazine's annual list of the top 40 business stars under 40 years old. 

In an effort to simplify the bureaucratic process and "make the culture the best version of itself", Mayer launched a new online program called PB&J. PB&J collects employee complaints, as well as their votes on problems in the office; if a problem generates at least 50 votes, online management automatically investigates the matter. 

In February 2013, Mayer oversaw a major personnel policy change at Yahoo! that required all remote-working employees to convert to in-office roles. Having worked from home toward the end of her pregnancy, Mayer returned to work after giving birth to a boy, and had a nursery built next to her office suite—Mayer was consequently criticized for the telecommuting ban. 

In April 2013, Mayer changed Yahoo!'s maternity leave policy, lengthening its time allowance and providing a cash bonus to parents. CNN noted this was in line with other Silicon Valley companies, such as Facebook and Google. 

On May 20, 2013, Mayer led Yahoo! to acquire Tumblr in a 1.1 billion dollar acquisition. The acquisition was just one in a series of major purchases that occurred since Mayer became the CEO of the company. In July 2013, Yahoo! reported a fall in revenues, but a rise in profits compared with the same period in the previous year. Reaction on Wall Street was muted, with shares falling 1.7%. In September 2013, it was reported that the stock price of Yahoo! had doubled over the 14 months since Mayer's appointment. 

In November of 2013, Mayer instituted a performance review system based on a bell curve ranking of employees, suggesting that managers rank their employees on a bell curve, with those at the low end being fired. Employees complained that some managers were viewing the process as mandatory. 

Boards and honors 

As well as sitting on the boards of directors of Walmart, Jawbone, and Yahoo! Mayer also sits on several non-profit boards such as Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

Mayer actively invests in technology companies, including crowd-sourced design retailer Minted, live video platform Airtime, and mobile payments processor Square. 
Mayer was named to Fortune magazine's annual list of America's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 with ranks at 50, 44, 42, 38, 14 and 8 respectively. In 2008, at age 33, she was the youngest woman ever listed. Mayer was named one of Glamour Magazine's Women of the Year in 2009. 

She was listed in Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2012 and 2013, with ranks of 20 and 32 respectively. 

In September 2013, Mayer became the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to be featured in a Vogue magazine spread. In 2013, she was also named in the Time 100 and became the first woman listed as number one on Fortune magazine's annual list of the top 40 business stars under 40-years-old. Mayer eventually made Fortune magazine history in 2013, as the only person to feature in all three of its annual lists during the same year: Businessperson of the Year (No. 10), Most Powerful Women (at No. 8), and 40 Under 40. (No. 1) at the same time....Read more

Fergie Duhamel Full Biography

Fergie Duhamel (born Stacy Ann Ferguson; March 27, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, fashion designer, television host and actress. She is the female vocalist for the hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas, with whom she has achieved chart success worldwide. Her debut solo album, The Dutchess (2006), spawned five Billboard Hot 100 top five singles, three of which went to number one. 

Ferguson was a member of the children's television series Kids Incorporated and the girl group Wild Orchid. In 2001, she left the group and in the subsequent year began to team up with The Black Eyed Peas. With The Black Eyed Peas, she enjoyed a series of hits and albums before releasing her solo debut album in September 2006 to success. The Black Eyed Peas enjoyed further success with the release of their third album with Ferguson, The E.N.D. (2009); they attained their first string of Billboard Hot 100 number one songs. She began touring in 2009/2010 with her group and she launched her debut fragrance, Outspoken, under Avon in May 2010 and has since released three more fragrances. 

She continued success with The Black Eyed Peas and they released the album The Beginning (2010), which featured three singles, including two number one songs. As Ferguson's five solo singles and six singles with The Black Eyed Peas have reached two million downloads in the United States, Ferguson was the artist with the most two-million sellers by the beginning of 2011. Read more...

Sara Paxton Full Biography

Sara Paxton (born April 25, 1988) is an American actress, model and singer. She grew up in California and began acting at an early age, appearing in many minor roles in both films and television shows, before coming to wider renown in 2004, after playing the title role in the series Darcy's Wild Life and Sarah Borden in Summerland. Paxton has also starred in the films Sleepover, Aquamarine, Return to Halloweentown, Sydney White, Superhero Movie, The Last House on the Left, Shark Night 3D and Lovestruck: The Musical 

Film Career

Paxton has said that singing and acting "went hand in hand" during her early years, though she initially began working as an actress, appearing in musical theater and later in television commercials at a young age. Her first film role was a small part in the 1997 Jim Carrey comedy, Liar Liar. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, she appeared in a number of minor television and film roles, including a part on the soap opera Passions, regular roles on the series Greetings from Tucson and Action, and a guest starring role on the Disney Channel show, Lizzie McGuire starring Hilary Duff playing an ex-president of Lizzie's school. In 2003, Paxton starred in R. L. Stine's Haunted Lighthouse, a short 3-D film attraction that still plays at several theme parks across the United States. She also appeared as Lana on CSI: Miami and as Marnie Piper in Return to Halloweentown. 

Paxton's first major role was in the teen-oriented film Sleepover, which opened in July 2004 to negative reviews and low box office revenue; during the same summer season, she appeared in several episodes of the series, Summerland, playing Sarah Borden, a mentally troubled teen who experimented with drugs and sex with Jesse McCartney's character. Paxton was subsequently cast in the lead role of the Discovery Kids television series, Darcy's Wild Life, playing Darcy Fields, a girl who works at a rural veterinary; the series was filmed on a farm in Toronto and aired from 2004 to 2006, often featuring Paxton's music track, "Take a Walk". Paxton received an Emmy nomination for the role in 2006. 

In 2005, Paxton spent three months working on the Florida-themed Aquamarine, in which she played a mermaid, opposite Emma Roberts and JoJo, whom she befriended while filming. Paxton has said that she felt a sense of "female empowerment" while on set because "almost everyone" on set was female. The film opened on March 3, 2006 and grossed approximately $7.5 million in its opening weekend. Reviewers of the film compared Paxton, whose inspiration is Goldie Hawn, to actress Reese Witherspoon, saying that she has an "infectious, nutty energy." Paxton recorded a song for the film's soundtrack titled "Connected", an English version of the Mexican group RBD's song Tenerte y Quererte from their 2004 album Rebelde. 

Paxton hosted The Secret Life of Water, the first episode of the series Planet H2O, which premiered in April 2006 on public television stations. In May of the same year, she made an appearance on the television series Pepper Dennis, playing a teen actress. Paxton, who sees herself as an "evolving actress," then appeared in Return to Halloweentown, replacing Kimberly J. Brown in the fourth installment in Disney Channel's Halloweentown series; she dyed her hair brown for the role. The film aired on October 20, 2006. During the summer and early fall of 2006, Paxton filmed The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker, a Lifetime Television film, in Vancouver Island. In the film, she plays Jessie, a college student who falls victim to binge drinking. Paxton has described it as "very different" from her previous roles, and has specified that she was looking for a role that would be a "challenge". The film aired in March 2007. Paxton's next film role was in Sydney White, a college-set comedy starring Amanda Bynes and Matt Long; filming began on February 12, 2007 in Orlando, Florida and the movie was released on September 21, 2007. She next starred in Superhero Movie, a parody on superhero films which began filming in September 2007 and was released on March 28, 2008. She also helped co-star Drake Bell record his theme song for the movie, Superhero! Song. 

Paxton starred in the remake of The Last House on the Left, playing the lead female character, Mari. The film opened March 13, 2009. Her next film may be Gravy, a horror-comedy with Jena Malone and Winona Ryder, and she will also guest star on the show Jonas. 

Paxton starred in the CW drama series The Beautiful Life alongside Corbin Bleu, Mischa Barton and Elle Macpherson. The show premiered on September 16, 2009, but was cancelled after 2 episodes. It was later aired online on YouTube. Paxton will next co-star with Scott Eastwood in the thriller Enter Nowhere, and will also play one of the lead roles in the Ti West film The Innkeepers. Paxton also recently starred in the 2011 movie Shark Night. She recently acted as Mirabella on the ABC Family movie Lovestruck: The Musical in 2013.

Music career 

Paxton was signed to a record deal with Epic Records during the time she was cast in Aquamarine. Her debut music CD, The Ups and Downs, featuring the titled single "Here We Go Again", is due for release by Epic at some point "in the future"; as of March 2007, Paxton has not completed work on it. She has described the sound as "pop/rock. It is believed Sara's debut album has been shelved and she has no plans to continue her music career as she has not made any announcement of any plans to further her career in the music industry."