Elon Musk has tapped Linda Yaccarino, till this week the pinnacle of promoting at NBCUniversal, to exchange him as CEO of Twitter, he introduced in a tweet Friday.
“@LindaYacc will focus totally on enterprise operations, whereas I give attention to product design & new expertise,” the tweet learn, partly.
The announcement comes after the billionaire on Thursday tweeted that he had discovered somebody new to steer the social media platform, including that “she shall be beginning in ~6 weeks!” Musk, who accomplished a deal to purchase Twitter last fall for $44 billion, will transition to government chairman and chief expertise officer of Twitter.
NBCUniversal additionally announced Yaccarino’s departure from the corporate, efficient instantly, on Friday.
“We’re grateful for Linda Yaccarino’s management of NBCUniversal’s Promoting Gross sales enterprise, and for the modern group and platform she has constructed,” Comcast president Mike Cavanagh mentioned in a press release. “Linda has made numerous contributions to the corporate throughout her twelve 12 months tenure, and we want her the most effective.”
“It has been an absolute honor to be a part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead probably the most unbelievable group. We have remodeled our firm and all the business—and I’m so happy with what we have achieved collectively, and grateful to my colleagues and mentors, particularly Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanagh and all the NBCU management group,” Yaccarino mentioned.
What’s her background?
Yaccarino, a graduate of Penn State College, served because the chair of worldwide promoting and partnerships at NBCUniversal, performing as “the strategic and operational bridge throughout the whole lot of NBCUniversal’s international networks, properties, and enterprise items,” based on her profile on LinkedIn. Her position concerned monetizing the corporate’s networks, digital and streaming platforms, distribution and commerce partnerships, and consumer relationships. That included overseeing all of its international, nationwide and native advert gross sales.
Isaac Brekken/Selection/Penske Media through Getty Photos
She managed a 2,000-member group that, since she joined NBCU in 2011, has generated greater than $100 billion in advert gross sales. She additionally helped launch the corporate’s ad-supported streaming service, Peacock.
Her LinkedIn profile additionally signifies that she “made huge investments in information and expertise capabilities.”
On the interpersonal entrance, she self-describes as a “sought-after connector, collaborator, and counselor,” in addition to “a dedicated change agent and consummate unifier” inside her business.
As chair of the Advert Council, a nonprofit that promotes public service bulletins, she garnered help from numerous entities, together with the White Home, to design a vaccination marketing campaign that includes Pope Francis that reached greater than 200 million People.
Earlier than becoming a member of NBC, Yaccarino spent almost 20 years at international leisure firm Turner.
Is she the fitting individual to steer Twitter?
Yaccarino final month interviewed Musk at a advertising and marketing convention in Miami. “In some ways, in the present day is your introduction to the promoting neighborhood,” Yaccarino mentioned after she welcomed him on stage.
“I pleasure myself on my work ethic. However buddy, I met my match,” she instructed the CEO of House X, Tesla and Twitter. She then went on to speak about “the problem of the fragile stability of a rebrand” of a extensively identified and extensively used product like Twitter.
One Wall Avenue analyst mentioned Yaccarino can be a “homerun rent” for Twitter given her huge expertise overseeing billions in advert income yearly.
She would “slot in very properly to the general Twitter technique and monetization trying forward,” mentioned Wedbush expertise analyst Dan Ives.
Her expertise launching new income streams for NBCU, together with Peacock, and deep information of easy methods to monetize services makes her a superb option to helm Twitter, Ives added.
It is key that Twitter overhaul its digital promoting technique whereas additionally monetizing its consumer base after main advertisers jumped ship since Elon Musk took over.
“There may be heavy lifting forward for Twitter on the digital promoting entrance because the platform now must get again advertisers whereas monetizing its consumer base,” Ives mentioned. “Twitter wants a CEO that may hit the bottom operating and attempt to turnaround the Twitter platform with a key 6 to 12 months forward.”
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