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Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s promoting chief, was making ready to interview Elon Musk, Twitter’s proprietor, onstage at a convention final month when she acquired an electronic mail from a peer within the promoting business.
Rob Norman, a former govt on the advert big WPP, wished to know if Ms. Yaccarino had seen the op-ed he wrote after Mr. Musk bought Twitter final 12 months. Mr. Norman’s column mentioned the tech billionaire’s amplification of misinformation on Twitter and its chilling impact on advertisers.
Ms. Yaccarino mentioned that she had and that she deliberate to lift such issues, Mr. Norman mentioned. However the primary focus of her discuss with Mr. Musk can be on one thing else: His efforts to revamp the social community into “Twitter 2.0.”
Now Ms. Yaccarino is ready to turn into the face of Twitter 2.0. Mr. Musk mentioned on Friday that he had chosen Ms. Yaccarino, 60, to turn into the corporate’s chief govt. Hours earlier, NBCUniversal introduced that Ms. Yaccarino was leaving, efficient instantly.
“I’m excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the brand new C.E.O. of Twitter,” Mr. Musk tweeted. He mentioned she would primarily deal with enterprise operations whereas he would proceed engaged on product design and expertise.
In selecting Ms. Yaccarino, Mr. Musk is signaling what his precedence is at Twitter: its promoting enterprise, reasonably than social media know-how. Ms. Yaccarino has been considered one of Madison Avenue’s energy brokers for many years. And Twitter, which makes the majority of its income from adverts, has struggled to broaden that enterprise, particularly after Mr. Musk spooked advertisers final 12 months.
“Linda’s a pressure,” mentioned Joe Marchese, the previous head of advert gross sales on the Fox Networks Group, who has identified Ms. Yaccarino for not less than a decade. “She has one of many greatest jobs in promoting, and the advert market is as arduous because it’s ever been.”
But Ms. Yaccarino must do greater than deal with Twitter’s promoting woes. The corporate, which relies in San Francisco, has been severely slimmed down since Mr. Musk slashed 75 p.c of its work pressure and has grappled with gaps in experience and technical glitches. Twitter can be weighed down by $13 billion in debt that it took on to allow Mr. Musk to purchase the corporate.
Most importantly, Ms. Yaccarino must cope with a mercurial and unpredictable boss in Mr. Musk. The 51-year-old billionaire has a observe file of firing executives who don’t obtain his targets. He generally tweets information about his varied corporations, which additionally embody the electrical carmaker Tesla, with out warning. And as Twitter’s proprietor, Mr. Musk retains absolute energy on the firm.
Mr. Musk already upended Ms. Yaccarino’s rigorously laid plans when he tweeted on Thursday that he had chosen a brand new Twitter chief, although he didn’t establish her. Ms. Yaccarino, who was in back-to-back rehearsals for NBC’s annual pitch to main advertisers when the tweet went out, hadn’t knowledgeable lots of her fellow executives that she was planning to go away, 4 individuals with information of the matter mentioned.
Lou Paskalis, a longtime advert govt and pal of Ms. Yaccarino, likened her transfer to Twitter to taking a “step into the lion’s mouth.”
“Together with her stature within the business as in all probability one of the vital beloved and trusted individuals on the income facet, I query why she would topic herself to that type of potential reputational threat,” he mentioned.
Mr. Musk and Ms. Yaccarino could also be betting that there’s loads of upside with Twitter 2.0. Mr. Musk has laid out bold plans for the corporate, telling staff that it may very well be price $250 billion someday and that the platform will be an “every thing app,” with options like funds. (He not too long ago mentioned that Twitter is worth $20 billion, down from the $44 billion he paid for it.)
Ms. Yaccarino has already been engaged on her priorities at Twitter. One one who has spoken along with her in current days mentioned that she is targeted on repairing the corporate’s relationship with Madison Avenue and wooing media corporations again to the platform, doubtlessly with partnership offers.
And he or she and Mr. Musk seem aligned on political points — reminiscent of a extra permissive strategy towards speech on Twitter — which are central to his imaginative and prescient for the platform, two individuals accustomed to her views mentioned. She is a conservative and a critic of so-called woke discourse, a time period utilized by conservatives to explain parts of left-wing social progressivism they view as censorious, they mentioned.
Former President Donald J. Trump twice appointed Ms. Yaccarino to two-year phrases on the President’s Council on Sports activities, Health and Diet, the place she joined would-be Republican politicians reminiscent of Mehmet Oz, the celeb doctor.
Ms. Yaccarino, who didn’t return requests for remark, grew up with working-class Italian parents in Lengthy Island, New York, together with a father who was a police officer. She attended Catholic faculty. After graduating from Pennsylvania State College in 1985 with a telecommunications diploma, she spent almost 20 years at Turner Leisure, changing into chief working officer of promoting gross sales, advertising and acquisitions earlier than leaving for NBCUniversal in 2011.
At Turner and NBCUniversal, Ms. Yaccarino — who has been mentioned to barter like a “velvet hammer” — made a reputation for herself by serving to conventional tv hold its ground in promoting within the period of Fb and Google. Every year, she strode onstage at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor for the upfront displays, the glitzy showcases utilized by tv networks to woo Madison Avenue, to influence entrepreneurs to pay a hefty premium over social media charges to promote on reveals like “This Is Us” and “Saturday Night time Stay.”
However whereas Ms. Yaccarino has spent years defending TV advert {dollars} from tech corporations and been a fierce critic of Fb and YouTube, she has additionally struck partnerships with apps like Snapchat and TikTok and digital retailers like BuzzFeed.
Outdoors work, Ms. Yaccarino grew to become concerned in initiatives together with the World Financial Discussion board’s Taskforce on Way forward for Work, which she heads. She was additionally a chair on the board of the Advert Council, a nonprofit, and helped the group increase $60 million in three months early within the pandemic to assist counter vaccine hesitancy, making non-public calls, sending notes and “working each lever that she had,” mentioned Lisa Sherman, the council’s chief govt.
Ms. Yaccarino reached out to Mr. Musk across the time of the Tremendous Bowl in February to debate a partnership with NBCUniversal and doubtlessly becoming a member of Twitter as chief govt, three individuals accustomed to their talks mentioned.
She had beforehand expressed admiration for Twitter, calling the platform “the only, No. 1 greatest” content material distribution associate for NBCUniversal at an ad industry event quickly after Mr. Musk took over the corporate. On the time, she added that she didn’t plan to “guess in opposition to him” and that she believed he might “study promoting.”
“I feel we will train him,” she mentioned.
This week, Ms. Yaccarino was in attendance when Mr. Musk spoke at an promoting convention in California’s Napa Valley hosted by WPP, three individuals accustomed to the occasion mentioned.
Ms. Yaccarino can be a uncommon feminine chief govt in expertise, as prime executives like Meta’s Sheryl Sandberg and YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki have not too long ago left their roles. All through her profession, Ms. Yaccarino has usually mentioned that she has been the one girl on the desk and has described incidents of bias, such because the time a male supervisor complained in an in any other case flattering efficiency evaluate about her aggressiveness: “I solely want she would cease utilizing her excessive heels as a weapon.”
Whereas Ms. Yaccarino is energetic on Twitter, her habits are sedate compared to Mr. Musk’s, although in current weeks, she has appreciated dozens of posts by and about him.
Nonetheless, the variations between Mr. Musk and Ms. Yaccarino have been clear final month on the media convention in Miami. A cultured Ms. Yaccarino got here with ready feedback. An unshaven Mr. Musk spent a number of moments wrangling his toddler son, X Æ A-12, earlier than becoming a member of her and providing generally halting solutions to her questions.
Ms. Yaccarino returned repeatedly to worries that her business colleagues have voiced since Mr. Musk took management of Twitter, emphasizing a number of instances that the viewers of advert executives was essential to the corporate’s monetary success.
Mr. Musk mentioned that “there’s reputable issues that advertisers have that I wish to hear.” He recounted a criticism he had heard from David Zaslav, the chief govt of Warner Bros. Discovery, who was annoyed that he was unable to put adverts for “White Lotus,” the hit HBO present, subsequent to discussions of “White Lotus” on Twitter.
The problem has since been mounted, Mr. Musk mentioned.
Ms. Yaccarino answered: “So it’s a brand new starting.”
John Koblin contributed reporting from New York.
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