Twitter’s New CEO a ‘Velvet Hammer’ to Help Musk Win Back Sales
Twitter's next leader is a well-connected media executive whose deep ties to Madison Avenue could help lure advertisers back to the platform at a critical time.
Linda Yaccarino is leaving her job as head of global advertising at NBCUniversal to take the chief executive officer role at Twitter. She will work closely with owner Elon Musk, who will be both chief technology officer and executive chairman.
She will helm a company mired in multiple crises — many of them spurred by Musk himself. Musk fired or lost about 75% of Twitter employees since his October takeover, including most of those who had deep relationships in sales and partnerships, which Yaccarino will now need to repair. The company has also faced an advertiser exodus, triggered in part by Musk's erratic content moderation decisions and his own tweets.
Yaccarino joined Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal in 2011 after nearly two decades at Turner, home of cable channels like TNT and TBS. At NBC, she helped launch the ad-supported streaming service Peacock, oversaw live events like the Super Bowl and Olympic Games, and forged partnerships with tech companies including Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter.
She's perhaps best known for leading the TV industry's push for new ways to measure viewers. Yaccarino was highly critical of Nielsen, whose ratings have long formed the basis for TV ad 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 alternatives.
“She has been ahead of the curve really in measurement and marketing effectiveness,” said Michael Kassan, the chief executive officer of the marketing and media consulting firm Medialink.
Kassan said
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