Carol Bartz(The first female CEO of a major software company, Yahoo)

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The first female CEO of a major software company, Yahoo

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* Patrick Kingsley
* The Guardian, Tuesday 8 March 2011
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Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz speaks during conference in San Francisco Carol Bartz. Photograph: Robert Galbraith/Reuters

"Carol Bartz knows how to inspire people," says Sarah Lacy, senior editor at technology blog TechCrunch. The head of Yahoo since 2009, Bartz is still a rarity as a senior woman in the technology business – despite becoming the first female CEO of a major software company, Autodesk, in 1992.

Growing up in 60s Wisconsin, Bartz says she was expected to end up as either a teacher or a nurse, and even after joining manufacturing firm 3M, she faced discrimination. was told by one colleague: "Women don't do these jobs." one colleague told Bartz – the sole woman in a division of 300 men – and sSo she left for a meteoric career in computing. She built her reputation a At Autodesk,where, despite undergoing chemotherapy for the first six months of her tenure, she went on to increased revenues sevenfold.

Her abrasive style hasn't charmed everyone – she once told entrepreneurial blogger Michael Arrington to "Fuck off!"– but she still has admirers. "She gets tech," says Lacy. And, importantly: "She's unafraid to talk about her role in the industry as a woman