Yahoo Bets On New CEO With $19-Million Package

Bartz, who took the helm of Yahoo on Tuesday, will receive a starting annual base salary of $1 million per year, subject to an annual review for increase, the company said in the filing. She will also receive a $10 million equity-and-cash payment to compensate her for the benefits that she will forfeit from her previous employment at Autodesk.

In addition, Bartz will receive an annual payment for 2009 with a value of about $8 million which is expected to be given in February 2009.

Bartz is also eligible to receive an annual target bonus of 200 percent of her annual base salary to be determined by the company's compensation committee of the board.

Bartz will also receive stock options for five million shares of Yahoo's common stock with a price to be determined January 30. However, Bartz cannot exercise the options until Jan. 1, 2013, and the shares will not begin to vest when the share price is increased by 50 percent for at least 20 consecutive trading days.

Yahoo tapped Bartz Tuesday, replacing the embattled Jerry Yang.

Bartz served most recently as executive chairman of the board of directors of Autodesk, where she was chairman, president and CEO for 14 years prior to becoming executive chairman in May 2006.

Yahoo praised her performance at Autodesk and said she was responsible for transforming the company into a leader in computer-aided design software. In a statement, Yahoo said that in her tenure as CEO, revenues increased to more than $1.5 billion from less than $300 million, and the company's share price increased nearly tenfold.

Like most tech companies, Autodesk is also feeling the pain of the economic storm, and Thursday lowered its fourth-quarter forecast and announced the elimination of 750 employees, roughly 10 percent of its workforce. The software design manufacturer is also restructuring the company.

Prior to joining Autodesk, Bartz held management positions at Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment and 3M. Bartz also currently serves on the board of directors of Cisco Systems, Intel and NetApp.

However, the filing said that Bartz needs to step down from at least one board of a publicly traded company other than Yahoo.