With his navy slacks, slightly wrinkled button-down shirt and brown Oxfords, Terry Semel seems more like a distracted history professor than a multimillionaire powerhouse executive or entertainment industry mogul. Unless you’re a film savant or up to speed with the goings-on in Silicon Valley, you probably wouldn’t even recognize his name.
For four decades, however, Semel has been one of the key players in the broadcast media and online search engine businesses, best known for his work with industry giants such as Warner Brothers, Disney and Yahoo.
Semel visited the university on Monday as part of the McDonough School of Business’ Distinguished Leaders Lecture Series. In front of an auditorium of undergraduate and MBA students, Semel discussed his rise through the ranks of Warner Brothers and Yahoo, his current business venture, and his philosophy of management in an interview with his former Yahoo colleague and current MSB professor Greg Coleman.
Semel told his audience about his own career uncertainty upon graduating from Long Island University with an accounting degree in 1966. A life-changing opportunity presented itself when a friend told him about a program in New York City run by Warner Brothers for those interested in marketing the company’s films to movie theaters across the country.
Semel seized the opportunity, traveling from New York to Cleveland and eventually to Los Angeles, making his way up the ladder with time. Still in his early 20s, he ascended from sales trainee to branch manager to director of sales for the West Coast. He attributed his successes to his work ethic. “I’m available. I want to learn. If you say move, I’m there. I’m your guy,” Semel recalled.
His experiences in the office and on the road taught him marketing skills but also how to manage people and how to foster the family environment that he sees as crucial to running a successful company.
Despite his original lack of industry connections and background in the film business, he soon received a call from Warner Brothers offering to groom him for a takeover as president of the company, which he did in 1975. What followed was a 24-year partnership with Bob Daly in which they sought to make each other’s goals a reality.
After more than 20 years and revenue increases of $1 billion to $11 billion, Semel decided he didn’t want to spend his career with one company. He consented to the request of Stanford students Jerry Yang and David Filo to run their new startup: Yahoo.
To understand Semel’s success at Yahoo is to look at the numbers. When he assumed control of the company, he could barely use email and Internet stock had just plummeted from $200 to as low as $4 per share.
Over the course of his six years as chairman and CEO, the company saw a nine-fold increase in revenue as well as a $30 billion increase in shareholder value. He made acquisitions for the company such as the 2001 takeover of Hotjobs.com and introduced wide-ranging reforms that turned the company into a cohesive force to be reckoned with. At the time of his departure from the company in 2007, there were over 600 million Yahoo users worldwide, and he sat at No. 5 on Forbes’ list of highest-compensated CEOs with annual salary and stock options valued at over $180 million.
For the several undergraduate and graduate students there, Semel made an impression.
“This opportunity to hear from such a successful, innovative businessman was quite interesting, especially because I gained insights to how his former company has been adapting to today’s rapidly developing tech industry,” Kevin Graver (MSB ’12) said.
Semel counseled his audience to take risks both in business and in life, to remain honest with yourself and others, and to avoid playing games in the boardroom. The current chairman and CEO of Windsor Media, he is also the head of multiple boards of directors and charitable organizations.
“I’m not slowing down. I’m always looking for the next opportunity to take something from small to medium to large.”
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