Twitter CEO Elon Musk, on Friday, announced that Former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino will be the new CEO of the microblogging company.
Taking to Twitter, Musk wrote: "I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! @LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology."
"Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app," he wrote.
Earlier, he had announced that he hired a new CEO and she will be starting in six weeks. His role will transition to being executive chair and CTO, overseeing product, software, and sysops, Musk added.
Yaccarino is credited with modernising the Comcast Corp entertainment and media division's advertising business and had been in talks for the job before NBC announced her departure Friday, Reuters reported.
Yaccarino had joined NBCU in 2011, after spending 15 years at Turner Entertainment. She is responsible for taking the network's ad sales operation into the digital era.
According to media reports, she did her graduation from Penn State University, in liberal arts and telecommunications.
Yaccarino worked at NBCUniversal for nearly 12 years with her team generating more than $100 billion in ad sales since 2011, her company bio notes. According to LinkedIn, Yaccarino previously served as NBC's chair for advertising and client partnerships and as president of cable entertainment and digital advertising sales. Prior to her time with NBC, Yaccarino worked at global entertainment company Turner for almost two decades.
Yaccarino interviewed Musk on a Miami stage last month in front of hundreds of advertisers.
Yaccarino could help restore advertisers' faith in Twitter, ad agency DiGo founder and creative chief Mark DiMassimo said. He noted that Yaccarino successfully integrated and digitised ad sales at Comcast and NBC and that her track record of cross-selling ads across different platforms could appeal to Musk as he tries to transform Twitter from a social media company to a bigger media platform.
If anyone can translate the Musk vision into advantages for marketers she'll be able to do it," DiMassimo said.
—With agency inputs