Get upclose and personal with with Google Vice President, Search Products & User Experience Marissa Mayer. 

Click here to read a day-in-the-life profile of Mayer 

If you knew what you know now then, what advice would you give yourself?

Work somewhere that you feel comfortable, so you can be proactive and be a leader. Work for someone who believes in and invests in you, so your work to help the company advance also helps you grow.      

If you could change one thing in your career what would it be?

I've been extremely lucky in my career; I've had great mentors who have believed in me and have had the privilege of working with great teams. It's hard to pick one thing that I would change, because I think all the things that could be construed as challenges in my career have helped make me better at what I do.

So far, what has been your most memorable moment in your career?

I've been lucky to lead a team of incredible individuals who have defined and designed Google's look-and-feel and I've helped that team put in place organizational processes that are both data-driven and user-focused and led to the creation of iGoogle, image search, Google News, Maps, Toolbar, Desktop, Pack, Orkut, Books, as well as various iterations of Google Websearch,

I've helped to build out Google's product management team through recruiting as well as defining and managing Google's product development process.  Over the years, I've defined various parts of Google's strategy - particularly on search, led various centralized prioritization processes (Top 100, Product Council), and defined and developed Google's APM ("Associate Product Manager") Program, which hires the best and brightest product-minded computer science graduates in the country to become great Google product managers.

What are three things in your briefcase that are an absolute staple for women?

Google's focus on cloud computing has been successful at making my briefcase very light, because I can store so much information online in Gmail, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and Picasa Web Albums.  All in all, my briefcase basically has my laptop, power adapter, and a cell phone charger.

In your opinion what is the biggest advancement women have made in business? And what is the biggest obstacle women must overcome in the next 10 years?

I can really only speak from own perspective in the technology sector. In technology, there have certainly been great strides made, but there's clearly still a lot to be done.   

Google is committed to increasing diversity in the technology sector. Some of the things we're doing include creating youth programs to encourage girls and youth from historically underrepresented minorities to pursue studies in math, science and engineering, sponsoring scholarship programs and conferences that encourage women to pursue engineering, and also creating an internal hiring process and culture that encourages and values diversity.