Career Biography

Susan (Sue) Lynne Decker (born November 17, 1962) is CEO and Founder of Raftr, a trusted event and communications platform for college campuses. She currently serves as a member of the board of directors of two Fortune 500 companies – Berkshire Hathaway, and Costco Wholesale – and is a director of SurveyMonkey, Vail Resorts, and Vox Media. She is also an advisor for several entrepreneurial start-up, technology companies.

Previously, she was with Yahoo! for nine years, from 2000-2009, in various executive roles. During that period, Yahoo!'s revenue increased 600% from $1.1 billion in 2000 to $7.2 billion in 2008, while net income increased from $71 million to $423 million.

  • President of Yahoo! Inc., June 2007 to April 2009. In this role, Sue was a key participant in determining Yahoo!'s business strategy and vision and was responsible for all of the global business operations of Yahoo!, including sales, product marketing, product, and distribution across the three major customer groups of audience, advertisers, and publishers.  

  • General Manager, Advertiser and Publisher Group (APG), December 2006 to June 2007. APG was one of Yahoo!'s two major business units, responsible for the revenue of Yahoo! across search and display, including sales, operations, marketing, and product across ad network and field sales.

  • Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, June 2000 to June 2007. Responsible for all aspects of the company's financial and administrative direction within key functional areas, including finance, facilities, investor relations, human resources, and legal.

Prior to joining Yahoo!, Decker was with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) for 14 years, from 1986-2000. Most recently, she served as the Managing Director of Global Equity Research, a $300 million operation, where, among other things, she was responsible for building and staffing a non-U.S. research product based on global sector teams. Before she assumed these responsibilities, Decker spent 12 years as a top-ranked equity research analyst, providing coverage to institutional investors on more than 30 media, publishing, and advertising stocks.

Education and Accreditations

Decker holds a B.S. degree from Tufts University (1984), with a double major in computer science and economics, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School (HBS) in 1986. She also received the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst in 1989 and served on the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council (FASAC) for a four-year term, from 2000 to 2004. During the 2009- 2010 academic year, she was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at HBS. She attended the Stanford Directors’ College in 2004 and 2009 and was a speaker in 2014 on a panel on how macroeconomic trends impact boards of directors.

Previous Board Positions

  • Intel Corporation from November, 2006 to May, 2016;

  • Save the Children from February, 2010 to February, 2016;

  • LegalZoom from October, 2010 to February, 2014;

  • The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) from March, 2005 to May, 2007;

  • Pixar Animation Studios from June, 2004 to May, 2006.

Awards and Honors

  • Alumni Achievement Award, Harvard Business School’s highest honor, 2010;

  • Top CFO for Internet Industry, Institutional Investor magazine, 2007;

  • Financial Woman of the Year, Financial Women's Association of San Francisco, 2005;

  • Listed in top 50 Most Powerful Women, Fortune Magazine, 2005, 2007, and 2008;

  • Ranked as a top rated analyst by Institutional Investor magazine for 10 consecutive years, from 1989 - 1998.

Personal

Sue was born in Memphis, Tennessee; and grew up in Denver, Colorado, graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1980. She now lives in San Francisco with her three children (when the older ones are home from school), ranging from 17-22 years old.