Linda Yacarino was previously head of global advertising at NBC Universal. (file)
Twitter’s next leader is a well-connected media executive whose deep ties to Madison Avenue could help bring advertisers back to the platform at a critical time.
Linda Yacarino is leaving her job as head of global advertising at NBC Universal to take on the role of chief executive officer at Twitter. She will work closely with owner Elon Musk, who will be both chief technology officer and executive chairman.
She’ll helm a company beset by multiple crises — many of them driven by Musk himself. Musk has fired or lost about 75% of Twitter employees since his October acquisition, most of them deep relationships in sales and partnerships, which Yacarino will now need to fix. The company has also faced an advertiser exodus, which was triggered by Musk’s erratic content moderation decisions and his own tweets.
Yacarino joined Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal in 2011 after nearly two decades at Turner, home of cable channels such as TNT and TBS. At NBC, she helped launch the ad-supported streaming service Peacock, oversaw live events like the Super Bowl and the Olympic Games, and forged partnerships with tech companies including Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter.
She is perhaps best known for leading the TV industry to new methods of audience measurement. Yacarino highly criticized Nielsen, whose ratings have long been the basis of TV advertising deals, for not counting all the people who watched NBC’s shows online. In recent years, Yaccarino took the unusual step of bringing together competitors in the media industry to discuss options.
“She’s really been ahead of the curve in measurement and marketing effectiveness,” said Michael Kasson, chief executive officer of marketing and media consulting firm MediaLink.
Kassan said that Yacarino is “extraordinarily well respected in the industry” and has “amazing brand and agency relationships”.
During his tenure, Musk cut thousands of jobs, scaled back the company’s content moderation, and allowed previously banned accounts to return for breaking the rules. A controversial subscription service plan, Twitter Blue, has failed, attracting less than 1% of the user base. Twitter needed to increase sales in order to pay off the company’s $12.5 billion in debt when Musk bought it. Annual interest is expected to exceed $1.2 billion.
Despite a modest increase in daily users since the beginning of 2022, Twitter’s revenue has fallen 50% since October as a result of a “huge decline” in advertising, Musk said in March.
Martin Sorrell, who founded WPP plc, one of the world’s largest advertising companies, said, “He is probably what Elon needs to establish trust among advertisers.”
Dave Campanelli, Horizon Media’s chief investment officer, said Yacarino was “very, very tough in negotiations”, but he also listened to the needs of advertisers.
“She will bring a level of understanding of the advertising space and what it takes to bring advertisers back to the platform,” he said.
Media-industry peers say it was an open secret that Yacarino wanted the CEO job at NBCUniversal, previously helmed by Jeff Shell. Some in the industry suspect that Shell’s departure last month influenced Yacarino’s decision to leave, and some speculate that Yacarino’s top lieutenant, Krishna Bhatia, may have joined him on Twitter.
Yacarino has been described as relatable and empathetic by those who know him personally. Acquaintances say she is also known for being image-conscious and careful about how she appears in public.
Twitter users are already trying to understand Yacarino’s politics and behavior on the platform, what kind of content moderation decisions she might stand behind — and whether she will align with Musk in his embrace of right-wing provocateurs who Was suspended for the previous leadership of Twitter. Breaking the rules or spreading misinformation.
In 2018, she was named to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition by then-President Donald Trump. On Twitter, she is following several people in Trump’s orbit, including previously banned accounts, though it is unclear whether she runs her own profile. He’s already on the right wing, serving on the World Economic Forum’s task force and joining a pro-vaccination advertising campaign.
While at NBC, Yaccarino oversaw the integration of sales teams for Telemundo and became a big advocate for multicultural programming, according to Steven Wolfe Pereira, chief business officer of 3Pas Studios, who has known Yaccarino for years.
While Musk has publicly mocked diversity efforts on Twitter, Pereira said Yacarino has been a “champion” on such measures and does not back down during trade talks. Pereira said, “He’s not a wallflower. They’ll call him Velvet Hammer.” “He’s tough, but he’s fair.”
One of Yacarino’s first challenges on Twitter will be a new show from fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whose inflammatory comments prompted advertisers to stay away from him on cable.
Another will deal with her flamboyant, unpredictable new boss. He seemed to catch Yacarino off guard on Thursday when he said in a tweet that he had chosen a new CEO who would start in six weeks, without naming him.
During an advertising conference last month in Miami, Yacarino stressed to Musk his plan to make the platform more comfortable for brands. At one point, he pointedly asked Musk whether he thought he had “debunked” the site enough to reassure advertisers that their campaigns were not going into “terrible hateful places”.
Yacarino told Musk on stage: “Are there days where I see some of your tweets and wish I could say, “Stop helping the situation?”
Saying this he nodded.
Mike Proulx, chief marketing officer at Forrester, who led the research team, said, “There are very few people who wouldn’t be seen as the dominant CEO of Twitter, and Linda Yacarino is one of them.” “She is a respected force in the industry whose credibility with advertisers speaks for itself.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)