Meet Linda Yaccarino: Twitter’s new CEO who succeeds Elon Musk

Linda has earlier served as NBC Universal Advertising Chief
Meet Linda Yaccarino
Meet Linda Yaccarino

Linda Yaccaarino, the Ex-NBC Universal Advertising Chief was appointed as the CEO of Twitter on 12 May by Elon Musk. He stated earlier this year that Twitter will have a new CEO by the end of the year and that he will step down.

He announced the confirmation through a social media post, stating, “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design and new technology”. He had indicated previously that the new CEO would be starting work in approximately six weeks. Elon also mentioned that he is looking forward to transforming the platform into X, the Everything app.

Linda Yaccarino had been widely speculated to be the new CEO after Elon announced that he had hired a new CEO for Twitter on the platform. Yaccarino is a notable figure in the media industry. She joined NBCU in 2011 after 15 years at Turner Entertainment and is credited with bringing the network's ad sales division into the digital age.

She has held a range of senior positions at NBCU throughout her 20-year career, and she was responsible for NBCUniversal's global advertising and partnerships operations. She took over the stage at Radio city hall last year to tell advertisers that their brand messages were not an afterthought after broadcast television audiences migrated to streaming services. 

“I think (Yaccarino) has climbed every mountain she could at NBCU and did it impeccably well. And there’s no greater challenge than restoring order at Twitter.,” said Lou Paskalis, a long-serving executive in the advertising industry and CEO of AJL Advisory, a marketing consultancy.

Yaccarino’s departure is a significant blow to NBCUniversal as CEO Jeff Shell recently left the firm after admitting to an inappropriate interaction with a corporate employee, following an investigation after a complaint was lodged.

At a major conference in Miami, Yaccarino repeatedly emphasized that what advertisers are looking for from Twitter is protection. “I think that first and foremost, she’ll bring to Twitter an understanding of what advertisers need to see to get back on the platform from the brand safety perspective,” said Dave Campanelli, Horizon Media's CIO is the chief investment officer. “She knows better than anyone what it’s going to take and I think for advertisers and buyers, the question is, is she going to have free rein to do all that or is it going to be just the same old, same old (with Musk).”

Twitter users have flocked to the site, with some questioning Elon's choice of selecting someone with a different stance on the freedom of speech for which Twitter is known. When he first discussed Twitter's ambitions, he sought to minimize the platform's reliance on advertising and improve the way it controlled material. He also stated that he intended to expand the site's functionality to include payments, encrypted messaging, and phone conversations, renaming it X.

Musk has acknowledged massive declines in revenue, as a result of apprehension among advertisers of the changes he had brought to Twitter. “Content moderation. That’s what the influence is.” Linda Yaccarino can be seen saying, in an interview with Elon Musk. Yaccarino will face the difficulty of overseeing a firm that has struggled to be profitable, as well as heavy criticism over how Twitter handles misinformation and hate speech.

Musk bought Twitter last year for $44bn. Since then. he had been under pressure to find someone else to lead the company and refocus his attention on his other businesses, which include electric carmaker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX. With fewer than 10% of Fortune 500 tech companies headed by women.

Yaccarino is the first female Twitter CEO and the first from a non-tech background. After slowly climbing through the ranks of some of America's largest media organizations, Yaccarino will become that inspiring example of a woman at the top of a major tech firm.

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