Timothy Andrew Koogle (born July 5, 1951) is an American executive who served as the first

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and President of web company

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

between 1995 and 2001. He served as the company's

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

from 1999 to 2003. He was named to the Top 25 Executives of the Year by

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

in 1999 and 2000.

Early life and education

Koogle was born and grew up in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Alexandria and graduated from

Mount Vernon High School Mount Vernon High School could refer to: *Mount Vernon High School (Arkansas) — Mount Vernon, Arkansas * Mount Vernon High School (Illinois) — Mount Vernon, Illinois *Mount Vernon High School (Fortville, Indiana) * Mount Vernon High Sch ...

in 1969. He obtained a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

degree from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

in 1973, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in engineering from Stanford University in 1975 and 1977.

Professional

While still at Stanford, Koogle formed two businesses, an auto repair business that eventually specialized in making racing engines, and a mechanical design and prototyping firm that evolved into a company called Phase 2, which specialized in industrial robots. Koogle sold Phase 2 to Motorola in 1981, and later wound down his racing engine business. In 1983, Koogle went to work for

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

. In 1992, Koogle became president of Litton Industry's Intermec division, replacing John W. Paxton. He concurrently served as a senior vice president of

Western Atlas Western Atlas was an oilfield services company formed in 1987 through the merger of Western Geophysical (owned by Litton Industries) and Dresser Atlas. The resulting company was a joint venture of Litton and Dresser Industries until it was spu ...

. After just over two years at Intermec, Koogle was approached by headhunter Alan Sabourin, who had been tasked by venture capitalist and Yahoo! director

Michael Moritz Sir Michael Jonathan Moritz (born 12 September 1954) is a Welsh billionaire venture capitalist, philanthropist, author, and former journalist. Moritz works for Sequoia Capital, wrote the first history of Apple Inc., ''The Little Kingdom'', an ...

to find a CEO for the new company. Koogle first met with Yahoo! founders

Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. As of February 2022, Yang has a net worth ...

and

David Filo David Robert Filo (born April 20, 1966) is an American billionaire businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. His Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side software used to dynamically serve ...

in June 1995, and became CEO and president of the company in August, beating out a half-dozen other candidates for the job.

References

Yahoo! employees Living people Directors of Yahoo! American technology chief executives American chairpersons of corporations University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Motorola employees 1951 births {{US-business-bio-1950s-stub