She was in town to join the board of Mr. Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, and had come to the legendary investor’s attention through recommendations from Charles Munger, his longtime associate; Donald E. Graham, the chairman of the Washington Post Company; and David S. Gottesman, a fellow Berkshire board member.

“She passed some pretty tough tests when she got A-pluses from all three,” Mr. Buffett recalls. He describes Ms. Decker as a “home run” for a Berkshire board seat, because of her independence, interest in the company, dedication to shareholders and business savvy. “Sue is 100 percent on all four of those,” Mr. Buffett says, making him just one of Ms. Decker’s many fans in corporate boardrooms.

In her ascent from financial analyst to head of research at a major Wall Street brokerage firm to chief financial officer and now president of Yahoo, Ms. Decker’s smarts and acumen have drawn praise from other well-known business leaders — including Steven P. Jobs and Craig R. Barrett, who named her to the boards of Pixar Animation Studios and Intel, respectively, and Hamilton E. James, president of the Blackstone Group.

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Source: Lincoln Minor