NBCUniversal ad chief Yaccarino resigns amid Twitter CEO talk

Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s head of global advertising, has resigned, the company announced Friday.

The announcement came a day after Elon Musk’s remarks. Via Twitter The social media website will have a new CEO, but he declined to name the new person. In a tweet, Musk said the person would be appointed in about six weeks.

Yaccarino had been in pre-negotiations for the role, CNBC’s Julia Bourstein reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in 2011 and rose to the top of the company’s global advertising business. On Monday, the head of advertising was scheduled to attend NBCUniversal’s Upfront event in Radio City. This event is a sales presentation that the company makes to the advertising industry every May together with media in the same industry.

The long-time head of advertising has been replaced by chief marketing officer and other head of advertising as the platform has experienced a flight of advertisers and thus billions of dollars in losses after Musk’s acquisition last year. It brought a wealth of relationships with people to Twitter.

Musk completed the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last October. Shortly after, he fired the company’s top management and laid off thousands of employees.

As several advocacy groups have documented, Twitter has seen an uptick in offensive speech and rhetoric, prompting many companies to stop advertising spending on the platform. To make up for lost advertising revenue, Musk created Twitter Blue, a new subscription service that offers features such as the ability to compose longer tweets.

Yaccarino and Musk sat down together for a keynote interview at a marketing conference in Florida in mid-April. During the conversation, the duo discussed the role marketers will play in the future of Twitter and its place in the cultural conversation.

During the conference, Musk reportedly tried to reassure advertisers that Twitter was a fine place for brands.

Yaccarino’s departure from NBCUniversal comes just weeks after Jeff Shell was fired as the company’s CEO after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with an employee. NBCUniversal executives will report directly to Mike Kavanagh, president of parent company Comcast, rather than succeeding Shell.

NBCUniversal announced Friday that Yaccarino will leave the company with immediate effect, and current president of advertising sales and client partnerships, Mark Marshall, will become interim chairman of the company’s advertising and partnerships group.

Marshall will report to Mark Lazarus, Chairman of NBC Universal Television and Streaming. Lazarus and Marshall are likely to attend Monday’s NBCUniversal upfront presentation, CNBC’s David Faber and Julia Bourstein reported Friday.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.