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Linda Yaccarino, head of advertising at NBCUniversal, was preparing to interview Twitter owner Elon Musk on stage at a conference last month when she received an email from her peers in the advertising industry.
Rob Norman, a former executive at ad giant WPP, wanted to know if he saw the editorial Yaccarino wrote after Musk bought Twitter last year. Norman’s column discussed the proliferation of misinformation on Twitter by tech billionaires and the chilling effect it has on advertisers.
Yaccarino said he had such concerns and planned to raise them, according to Norman. But the main focus of the meeting with Mr. Musk will likely be on something else: Mr. Musk’s efforts to revamp the social network into Twitter 2.0.
Now Yacarino is trying to become the face of Twitter 2.0. Musk announced on Friday that he had elected Yaccarino, 60, as the company’s chief executive officer. Hours earlier, NBCUniversal announced Yaccarino’s retirement with immediate effect.
Musk: “I’m thrilled to welcome Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s new CEO.” tweeted. He said she will primarily be responsible for business operations, while he will continue to work on product design and technology.
By choosing Yaccarino, Musk demonstrates his priority on Twitter, which is his advertising business rather than his social media know-how. Yaccarino has been one of Madison Avenue’s power brokers for decades. And Twitter, which makes most of its revenue from advertising, has struggled to grow its business, especially since Mr. Musk surprised advertisers last year.
“Linda is a force,” said Joe Marches, former head of advertising sales at Fox Networks Group, who has known Yaccarino for at least a decade. “She has one of the biggest jobs in the advertising industry, and the advertising market has never been so tough.”
But Yaccarino will have to do more than deal with Twitter’s advertising problems. The San Francisco-based company has been slimming down significantly since Mr. Musk cut 75% of its workforce, tackling expertise gaps and technical deficiencies. Twitter has also been weighed down by $13 billion in debt it assumed to allow Musk to buy the company.
Most importantly, Yaccarino has to deal with a capricious and unpredictable boss named Musk. The 51-year-old billionaire has a track record of firing executives who fail to meet their goals. He occasionally tweets news about his various companies, including electric car maker Tesla, without warning. As the owner of Twitter, Musk holds absolute power over the company.
Musk had already upended Yaccarino’s well-thought-out plans on Thursday when he tweeted that he had elected a new Twitter head, although he didn’t name a specific person. Yaccarino was in rehearsals for NBC’s annual pitch to a major advertiser when the tweet came out and hadn’t told many of his fellow executives he planned to retire, four people familiar with the matter said. .
Yaccarino’s friend and longtime advertising executive, Lou Pasqualis, likened her move to Twitter to “stepping into a lion’s mouth.”
“Her position within the industry is probably one of the most loved and trusted in terms of revenue, so I wonder why she would be exposed to such potential reputational risks,” he said. rice field.
Musk and Yaccarino may be betting that Twitter 2.0 will have many benefits. Musk laid out the company’s ambitious plans, telling employees it could be worth $250 billion one day and that the platform could become “any app” with features like payments. rice field. (He recently said that Twitter was worth his $20 billion, down from his $44 billion he paid.)
Jacarino is already working on her priorities on Twitter. A person who spoke with her over the past few days said she is focused on mending ties with Madison Avenue, possibly signing partnership deals, and bringing media companies back onto the platform.
And Mr. Musk and Mr. Musk seem to agree on political issues central to Musk’s vision for the platform, including a more tolerant approach to speech on Twitter, according to a person familiar with her views. two people said. They said she was a conservative and a critic of so-called “awakened discourse,” a term conservatives use to describe elements of left-wing social progressiveism that they deem censorship.
Former President Donald J. Trump twice appointed Yaccarino to serve on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition for two years, joining a group of would-be Republican politicians including prominent physician Mehmet Oz.
Yaccarino, who did not respond to requests for comment, grew up in Long Island, New York, to working-class Italian parents, including a police officer father. She attended Catholic school. After earning a degree in telecommunications from Pennsylvania State University in 1985, she joined Turner, where she spent nearly 20 years in entertainment, becoming chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing and acquisitions in 2011. At NBC she left Universal.
At Turner and NBCUniversal, Yaccarino, who has been described as negotiating like a “velvet hammer,” made a name for himself helping traditional TV establish itself in the advertising space in the age of Facebook and Google. Raised. Each year, she struts proudly onto the stage of Radio City Music Hall to entice television networks to lure Madison Avenue and pay a premium above social media rates to promote on shows like “This Is Us.” I did an upfront presentation, a flashy showcase used to convince marketers. And “Saturday Night Live”.
But Yaccarino has spent years defending TV advertising dollars from tech companies and lashing out at Facebook and YouTube, while partnering with apps like Snapchat and TikTok and digital media outlets like Buzzfeed. also tied
Outside of work, Yaccarino became heavily involved in initiatives such as the World Economic Forum’s Task Force on the Future of Work, which she heads. She is also president of the nonprofit Advertising Council, where she helped the organization raise $60 million in the first three months of the pandemic to combat vaccination resistance, and personally They called, they sent notes, they had “activities in every way possible,” said Lisa Sherman, the council’s chief executive.
It’s unclear when Yaccarino first met Musk, but they publicly interacted onstage at a media conference last month at Florida’s posh Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel. Yaccarino previously expressed his admiration for Twitter at an ad-industry event shortly after Musk took over the company, calling it NBCUniversal’s “single and largest” content distribution partner. At the time, she added, she had no intention of “betting on him” and believed he could “learn advertising.”
“I think we can teach him,” she said.
Yaccarino was present when Musk spoke at the WPP advertising conference in Napa Valley, Calif., this week, according to three people familiar with the event.
With top executives like Meta’s Sheryl Sandberg and YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki recently leaving, Yaccarino will be a rare female CEO in tech. Throughout her career, Yaccarino has said she was the only woman in her seat, like when a male boss complained about her aggression in her performance reviews that seemed flattering. He talks about prejudiced events. She will stop using her high heels as her weapon. ”
Yaccarino is active on Twitter, though her habits are more subdued than Mr. Musk’s, but in recent weeks she has liked dozens of posts by and about him. .
Still, the differences between Mr. Musk and Mr. Yaccarino were clear at a news conference in Miami last month. Ms. Yaccarino, who was sophisticated, provided a prepared comment. Her unshaven Mr. Musk argued with her toddler son XÆA-12 for a while before joining her and answering her questions with occasional pauses.
Yaccarino repeatedly went back to concerns expressed by his industry colleagues since Musk took control of Twitter, repeatedly saying that an audience of advertising executives is critical to the company’s economic success. emphasized.
“We have legitimate concerns that advertisers have and we want to hear them,” Musk said. He detailed a complaint he heard from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. Zaslav said he was frustrated that he couldn’t run an ad for HBO’s popular show “White Lotus” when the show was being discussed on TV. twitter.
The issue has since been resolved, Musk said.
Yaccarino replied: “So it’s a new beginning.”
John Cobrin contributed a report from New York.
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