Something to Yahoo about

We all could use a mentor. Filipina Anne Espiritu, who recently took over as Yahoo’s global head of PR, happens to have public relations guru Marissa Mayer as her mentor: Mayer, Yahoo’s new CEO, has been on a mission to turn the company’s fortunes around and kick-start its future.

Espiritu is young and outgoing; she’s excited about the changes coming for Yahoo, and excited to be swinging through the Philippines, which just announced a partnership with ANC (with a portal dedicated to ANC on the Yahoo page, and Yahoo also featured on the ANC tickers at the bottom of TV screens), as well as the Third OMG Awards, held last Friday at MOA Arena with a host of celebs and performances by, among others, Gary Valenciano, Kjwan and OMG “Media Darling” Charice. (The Yahoo-run OMG gossip site is incredibly popular among Filipinos, who voted 9 million times in this year’s awards, up from last year’s 4 million.)

It’s quite interesting how the well-spoken Espiritu came up from “humble” beginnings in the Philippines (a Bulacan-born Filipino father and Manila-born half-Chinese/half-Filipino mom, plus two siblings) to become the mouthpiece for one of the Internet’s pioneers.

Here’s her story.

PHILIPPINE STAR: You’re quite young to be head of Yahoo’s global public relations.

ANNE ESPIRITU: I think looks are deceiving (smiles). But I was born in the Philippines, I came to the US when I was nine. I’m also the first person in my family to graduate from college in the US. I ended up going to UC Berkeley, where they breed idealists, so I saw the idealist in me come out there; my concentration was economic development in the third world. I ended up coming back here in 2002, spending my last semester as an undergrad in Ateneo.

I went back to the States in 2005, and got a job at Google — actually my stepdad had, three months before that, got his job at Google, and he took me to lunch, and I absolutely fell in love with the place. I saw people in flip-flops, they spent a ton of time in the cafeteria just brainstorming; it seemed like a really fun place to work. I ended up on the PR team. I didn’t really aspire for PR, but I actually have kind of a knack for it; I like to talk. It’s a really good way to expand your communication skills.

(She met Marissa Mayer at Google, then a key spokesperson for the company, and considered a PR guru. “She became kind of my mentor,” Espiritu says, during her almost seven years at Google.)

So in 2011, I approached Marissa. It basically broke my heart to tell her, look, I don’t want to leave your team — I had worked extensively with her — but I was ready for new opportunities. I wanted her advice. So she closed her laptop and said, “Okay, Ann, do you want to explore opportunities outside of Google or within Google?” And I said, “Well, I’m open to both.” So she started introducing me to people outside of Google, basically shopping me around and saying really great things about me, so I interviewed for about six months at other companies.

In the back of my mind, I was actually anticipating Marissa’s next move. I know she had been with Google 13 years, and a really big part of me missed working with her.

And she was also looking out for you.

She was also looking out for me. So last year, I saw the New York Times article where she was appointed as CEO of Yahoo, and my jaw dropped. I was really shocked, but so proud of her. And I e-mailed her and said, “Marissa, congratulations, I’m so happy for you, I know if anyone was going to make a difference at Yahoo, it would be you.” And she responded that day, and I was really surprised that she took the time to respond to my e-mail. But it didn’t really occur to me — I didn’t think of it as anything. Then two weeks later, I was thinking, “Wow, I really want to work with Marissa.” She couldn’t really approach me, because when you leave Google, you’re in a non-compete, you can’t poach anyone for a year. So I had to call her; we had a 10-minute conversation and I said, “Marissa, I’d really love to explore possibilities at Yahoo.” And she said
“I’d love for you to join me.” She had an offer in my inbox the following day; I quit my job the same Monday, ended my seven-year relationship with Google, and I started at Yahoo the following Monday.

So it was kind of a voluntary poaching?

It wasn’t really a voluntary “poaching”; she and I had genuine respect for each other. I actually respect the fact that she didn’t signal to me; I literally had to call and approach her. It was a well-kept secret; I don’t think her assistant even knew she was going to Yahoo. So that was a year ago, and it’s been a crazy, wild ride.

What was it about Yahoo that attracted Marissa and you away from Google?

I can’t speak for Marissa, but I think she has had genuine respect for Yahoo — a lot of the Internet was born out of Yahoo. And a lot of the products that Yahoo excelled in are part of her core competency — she worked on Search, Mail, Photos. So I lot of the stuff she had worked on at Google, we already offered at Yahoo. And she often says the job itself is tailor-made for her.

Obviously she felt you should be part of that team?

Yes, she and I had genuine respect for one another, the relationship; if you’ve been working for somebody for six years, that trust is built over time.

How does Yahoo intend to stay competitive in a very competitive online world?

Right now, we are really focused on mobile. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t wake up, and the first thing I did was pick up my phone. A lot of what we do on the phone is actually part of our daily habits. So Yahoo’s mission is to make the world’s daily habits inspiring and entertaining. If you actually look at the things people do on their phones — mail, search, photos, messenger, sports, news, finance, weather — those are actually the things that are a very big part of the Yahoo business; we actually do really well on Yahoo Sports and Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance. So those are things we’re really focused on right now.

How has Mayer’s stewardship kick-started Yahoo?

It’s no secret that in the past few years, traffic has been in decline. But because of all the improvements we’ve made in the last year (since Mayer joined Yahoo), we’ve actually seen the crossover; we’re actually growing again. We’ve essentially erased all the decline in the last year. I don’t think that’s been done before in a company of our size. So that’s something we’re really excited about.

We see it is as kind of a chain reaction: when you hire the best talent who can build the products for you, when you improve the products, it drives more engagement in usage; it drives clicks, it drives advertisers to come and spend their dollars on Yahoo; and ultimately it drives revenue.

Yahoo Mail was a pioneer. How do you keep it up to date?

In December we launched the new Yahoo Mail, we took out a lot of bells and whistles and made it easier to do what you want, which is get to your inbox and read and send messages.

Recently we’ve also made tremendous progress in offerings for mobile and tablet: we launched a new version of Yahoo Mail for tablet, it’s actually a beautiful experience, it’s magazine-like, which allows you to leaf through your inbox. We made it really intuitive and immersive.

Yahoo also acquired Tumblr last May for $1.1 billion. How is that part of the picture?

 Tumblr is a growth story for us. It’s probably one of the most successful — I don’t know if you call it a social network, but it has a really vibrant community. So one of the things we really wanted to do is not screw it up; so they’re pretty much going to operate independently. We’re really excited about the opportunities for the future.

Tell us about the ANC partnership.

What’s really exciting about ANC is they will have their own digital hub on Yahoo Philippine News. And that’s exciting for someone like me who lives overseas, because for me, the only opportunity to watch ANC news is when I go to my mom’s house on Sundays, because she subscribes to ANC. So now I don’t have to actually wait to go to her house on Sundays — I can go to Yahoo Philippine News to get access to all the awesome news content that they have.

With great Internet power comes great responsibility. Do you feel it’s part of the culture for companies like Yahoo and Google to be scrutinized more for their ethical choices?

I think when you become bigger then, yes, you are probably a lot more scrutinized. That said, it’s really important for us to operate with integrity. This is why Yahoo is so hugely focused on the user. It is something that I really respect in Marissa’s leadership: even from the very beginning, she was always intensely focused on the user, and it’s something she’s carried on in Yahoo. And I think when you remain focused on the right thing, on making sure you are building products for the benefit of your user, I think that is a great guiding light.