Linda Yaccarino is an esteemed New York media executive and widely revered within advertising. A strong proponent of brand safety, transparency and leading with moral compass. Linda has an established track record in bringing new data-driven commercial innovations to market as well as chairing the World Economic Forum’s Taskforce on Future of Work Taskforce.
NBCU
Linda Yaccarino Wikipedia took over NBCUniversal’s Ad Sales Team in 2011 and reconstructed it for the 21st century, helping create an overarching monetization strategy and developing revenue systems and infrastructure to support her efforts.
Yaccarino has long been recognized in media circles as an advocate of brand safety and transparency. She regularly speaks on these subjects at industry events, receiving multiple accolades such as Business Insider’s “Top 10 People Transforming Advertising,” Adweek’s “Ten Most Powerful Women in TV,” and UJA Foundation’s Mac Dane Award for Humanitarian Excellence.
Yaccarino will take the place of Joe Benarroch who recently was promoted to become chief operating officer at Twitter, while continuing her role leading global advertising and client partnerships at NBCUniversal. She will be overseeing broadcast and cable networks as well as its ad-supported streaming service Peacock in her role. Yaccarino has an extensive career in media management having held senior management roles at multiple companies.
Peacock
Although Peacock may lack the same scale as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Disney+, its library of original content, ability to target ads based on data and commitment to improving user experience makes it attractive to advertisers. Yaccarino has led efforts to develop innovative ad formats that combine ad effectiveness with user experience while meeting directly with brands including Coca-Cola and Visa in order to rebuild trust between these businesses and Peacock.
Peacock’s ad-supported platform offers some distinct features, including frequency capping (to prevent ads from playing repeatedly) and shoppable e-commerce functionality. Plus, Peacock boasts an expanding slate of original content including Girls5eva, Bel-Air and the Pitch Perfect spinoff We Are Lady Parts!
Elon Musk has appointed Linda Yaccarino, former global advertising strategy head at CNBC parent NBCUniversal and who helped launch their ad-supported streaming service Peacock as CEO for what was formerly Twitter. Linda will spearhead efforts to attract advertisers back after they fled over content that caused concern or hate speech on the site.
She has enjoyed an accomplished media career, having served for 20 years at Turner Entertainment. Additionally, she served on the Ad Council board which promotes public service announcements while working closely with the White House to design their coronavirus vaccine campaign.
But her recent appearance at Code 2023, hosted by Kara Swisher and tech journalist Leigh Yaccarino in Dana Point, California did not go well. For one thing, Yaccarino showed attendees her smartphone screen while waving both Facebook and Instagram apps – an apparent gaffe as this is how most people access X’s service! – but no X app at all; she appeared surprised when they pointed this out!
X Corp
Elon Musk announced via his tweets that Linda Yaccarino will become his next Twitter CEO and that she will start in six weeks. Musk noted her expertise as “speaking CMO and understanding what marketers need”. Yaccarino served as chairman of NBCUniversal advertising sales before becoming part of World Economic Forum Taskforce on the Future of Work Taskforce.
She enjoys strong relationships with top chief marketing officers whose funds are crucial to Twitter’s profitability, yet faces the difficult task of convincing advertisers to return after an ugly period following Elon Musk’s takeover, in which hate speech and other potentially illegal material proliferated widely across Twitter’s platform and brands departed in droves.
But some believe she will succeed despite Twitter’s chaos. Yaccarino was chosen because she understands both the ad business and has strong ties to top executives at X Corp – the umbrella company for all of Musk’s ventures including Tesla and SpaceX – as well as having graduated Penn State with her degree.
