Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer's speeches provide insight into how businesses can best build their product, while also maintaining an advantage over the competition. Mayer believes that in order for companies to be the best in their field they must focus on ordinary, everyday and meaningful concepts.

Currently, the President and CEO of Yahoo! and a high-level executive at Google -- where she was the first female engineer -- Mayer is a well-respected authority who understands how to surpass competition. Prior to this position, Mayer was Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, as well as VP of Location Services at Google. Mayer also held positions at UBS research lab in Switzerland and at SRI International in California.

With regards to her educational background, Mayer received an honors Bachelor of Science degree in Symbolic Systems and a Master's in Computer Science, at which time she specialized in artificial intelligence. Mayer was included on Fortune Magazine's '50 Most Powerful Women in Business' and to date is the youngest CEO of any Fortune 500 company. Due to her extensive work with technology and search initiatives, she was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Echoed throughout the Marissa Mayer's speeches is an important sentiment that businesses must be willing to adapt, so that they can constantly meet the demands of uncertain customer wants.