Online search portal Yahoo said yesterday that it has named Blake Irving, most recently a professor at the Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management in Malibu, as its Chief Product Officer, heading up the company's product strategy and direction. Irving, who had been a professor at Pepperdine since January of 2009, was teaching classes at Pepperdine's full time MBA program in Malibu. Irving had previously served as Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, heading up its Windows Live Platform group, as well as serving at Xerox, Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd, and Compaq Computer Corp.