Linda Yaccarino is an American media executive, or at least she was until she resigned recently to take the new CEO role at Twitter to replace owner, Elon Musk in the role.
She was the Chair of Global Advertising & Partnerships at NBCUniversal. On May 12, 2023, Elon Musk announced that Yaccarino would succeed him as the chief executive officer of X Corp. and Twitter.
Yaccarino was born in 1963 in New York City. She graduated from Penn State University with a degree in journalism. After college, she began her career in advertising at Turner Broadcasting System. She worked her way up the ranks at Turner, eventually becoming president of ad sales. In 2011, she joined NBCUniversal as chairman of advertising sales.
Yaccarino is credited with transforming NBCUniversal’s advertising business. She oversaw the launch of the company’s ad-supported streaming service, Peacock. She also negotiated new advertising deals with major brands, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. In 2022, she was named one of the most powerful women in business by Fortune magazine.
Yaccarino is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion in the media industry. She is a member of the board of directors of the Ad Council and the National Association of Female Executives in Technology. She is also a mentor to young women in the advertising industry.
Yaccarino is a respected leader in the media industry. She is known for her strong business acumen and her commitment to diversity and inclusion. She is expected to be a successful CEO of Twitter.
Reactions
- “I’m excited to see what Linda Yaccarino can do as CEO of Twitter. She’s a proven leader with a strong track record of success, and I’m confident that she’ll be able to take Twitter to the next level.” – Amit Agarwal, founder and CEO of Search Engine Land
- “I’m concerned about Linda Yaccarino’s appointment as CEO of Twitter. She has no experience in social media, and I’m worried that she’ll be beholden to advertisers. I hope that she proves me wrong.” – Jeff Jarvis, journalism professor and author of “What Would Google Do?”
- “I’m glad to see a woman appointed CEO of Twitter. Linda Yaccarino is a strong leader, and I’m confident that she’ll be able to make Twitter a more inclusive and welcoming platform.” – Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube
- “I’m cautiously optimistic about Linda Yaccarino’s appointment as CEO of Twitter. She has a lot of experience in the media industry, and I’m confident that she’ll be able to grow Twitter’s business. However, I’m worried that she’ll be too focused on making Twitter profitable, and that she’ll sacrifice the platform’s core values.” – Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter
Prior to this announcement, I had never heard of Yaccarino before, but having landed a position as significant the CEO of Twitter and having the endorsement of Elon Musk I was keen to learn more.
I’ve now watched a number of interviews with her, particularly impressive is the Salesforce Connections interview from August 2021. Yaccarino speaks confidently and about product strategy and execution in working with her team to launch the Peacock platform.
In the time before Musk took over Twitter, many of us focused on the previous CEO’s use of Twitter, so I took a look at her history and use of Twitter.
At the time of writing, she has posted just 1,212 times and is following 1,161 accounts since being named by Elon, her follower count has more than doubled, now sitting at 272,799.
Scrolling back through her timeline, she posted about an interview with co-founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey, who also held the CEO position from 2006 to 2008, and again from 2015 to 2021.
Linda Yaccarino and Elon Musk were both at the POSSIBLE marketing conference in Miami Beach, Florida on April 18, 2023 and Yaccarino actually interviewed Musk for the keynote conversation titled “Twitter 2.0: From Conversations to Partnerships.”
Just 10 days later, Yaccarino was announced as the next CEO of Twitter.
It is hard to determine just how well Yaccarino will do in the top spot, it’s certainly a role that has the attention of millions of people, across the globe, who are full of opinions. In Musk’s announcement Tweet, he suggests Yaccarino will be responsible for business operations, while he’ll still take care of leading product design and new technology.
Under this scope, it’ll be interesting to see what impact Yaccarino can make, but certainly, her background in Advertising will be valuable to solving the economics of Twitter, which expects to be cost-neutral or even profitable by the end of 2023.
Today, Elon replied to a Tweet indicating the Twitter CEO role was consuming his time and that this appointment (once Linda started in a few weeks), will allow him to return more time to Tesla.
A lot of Tesla Shareholders will be glad to hear this, as the share price has really suffered since Musk announced he was buying Twitter, which therefore meant he was selling Tesla stock to fund the historic deal.
In reality, Tesla has continued to function just fine during this time, vehicle sales continue to rise and expand to new markets (let’s not talk about the RHD Model S/X) and the really important FSD Beta software has continued to roll out, including v11.4.1 reaching customer cars today.
