Who is Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s new CEO? Advertising executive secured $100 billion in sales at NBCUniversal — and Elon Musk now hopes she’ll do the same for Twitter
- Linda Yaccarino stepped down from her role as head of advertising at NBCUniversal to become CEO of Twitter
- Since joining NBCUniversal in 2011, she has been credited with winning advertising deals worth more than $100 billion
- Yaccarino also holds influential positions at the World Economic Forum
Twitter’s new CEO is an ad executive who has racked up $100 billion in deals at NBCUniversal over more than a decade — and Elon Musk hopes she can mend his platform’s strained relationship with brands.
Linda Yaccarino was confirmed as the new head of Twitter on Friday, hours after she quit her job at NBC.
She also holds influential positions at the World Economic Forum, where she chairs the Task Force on Future of Work and is also a member of the Steering Committee of Media, Entertainment and Culture Industry Governors.
Twitter suffered a sharp drop in advertising after Musk’s $44 billion acquisition in October 2022, when some brands cut spending on the platform. Her appointment is seen as an attempt to undo the damage.
Musk said Yaccarino will help “transform this platform into X, the everything app.”
Elon Musk said Yaccarino will help “transform this platform into X, the everything app”
Musk announced the appointment on Friday, May 12, after reporting that Yaccarino was his choice
According to her LinkedIn page, Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in November 2011 as president of cable entertainment and digital advertising sales.
She then rose through the ranks and was named President of Global Advertising and Partnerships in October 2020.
Her now-deleted profile on the NBCUniversal website said she led a 2,000-member global team to “help connect emerging and established brands with hundreds of millions of viewers.”
Yaccarino’s team has “generated more than $100 billion in ad sales” since she joined in 2011, it said.
She also transformed NBCUniversal’s advertising sales strategy and “redesigned the advertising business for the 21st century.”
Prior to that, she spent 19 years at Turner, a major media company now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
She studied liberal arts and telecommunications at Penn State University.
Yaccarino has also held prominent positions on the Ad Council.
In December 2020, Donald Trump appointed Yaccarino to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.
Yaccarino interviewed Musk at a marketing event a month before her appointment
Yaccarino has been described as an “assertive” operator who can be combative “when the situation demands it”
She has been described as an “assertive” operator who can be belligerent “when the situation demands it.”
Twitter has had a rocky relationship with some advertisers since Musk’s acquisition — and he hopes Yaccarino’s experience can help turn that around.
Reports in January said Twitter had suffered a 40 percent drop in revenue since last year as more than 500 advertisers paused spending on the site.
In November, Musk admitted to problems with ad revenue, telling his followers: “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue from activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though content moderation hasn’t changed, and we’ve made every effort to appease the activists.’
Some Twitter users have threatened to terminate their Twitter Blue subscription over Yaccarino’s links to the World Economic Forum, her support for vaccines and masks during the pandemic, and her support for diversity initiatives.
But Musk said, “I think people from both ends of the political spectrum will find Linda smart, fair and reasonable.”