Twitter will soon have a new chief executive.
Elon Musk, who took on the role after acquiring the social media platform for $44 billion in October, was asked by a majority of Twitter users to step down as chief executive in a poll he conducted about six months ago.
On Friday, Mr Musk confirmed former NBCUniversal advertising head Linda Yaccarino would become the social media company's next chief executive, after announcing on Thursday that the role would be filled in six weeks.
Ms Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in 2011 after about two decades at Turner Entertainment. She left her position on Friday before Mr Musk's announcement.
In her role at NBCUniversal, she headed the $70 billion premium video ecosystem and was responsible for overseeing its portfolio of linear networks, digital and streaming platforms, distribution partnerships and client relationships.
Ms Yaccarino oversaw all global, national and local advertising sales, partnerships, marketing, data, measurement and strategic initiatives.
Since joining NBCUniversal, her 2,000-member team has generated more than $100 billion in advertising sales, expanded the company’s reach globally, launched the first advertisement-supported streaming service, Peacock, and made massive investments in data and technology capabilities.
She also led partnerships with technology companies such as Apple News, Buzzfeed, Holler, ReachTV, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube.
Ms Yaccarino also led the launch of One Platform, a unified trading system, as well as NBCUnified, a first-party identity data platform, to help streamline the advertising marketplace.
She also served as the 2021-2022 chair of the US Advertising Council when she teamed up with the White House, government agencies and private companies to create a Covid-19 vaccination campaign featuring Pope Francis.
Ms Yaccarino is also the chairwoman of the World Economic Forum's task force on the Future of Work and is also a member of the WEF's Media, Entertainment and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee.
Mr Musk already has a friendly relationship with Ms Yaccarino. She interviewed him last month at a major advertising conference in Miami, calling him “friend” and “buddy” on stage and applauding his work ethic.
