Person attributes
Linda Yaccarino is an advertising executive known for working at Turner and NBCUniversal, where she played key roles in the acquisition of advertising sales and in the development of innovative advertising and marketing solutions. In May 2023, she was announced as the new CEO of X Corp and Twitter under Elon Musk's ownership.
Linda Yaccarino was born in 1963 in New York City as one of three sisters (Lori Yaccarino Armstrong and Kate Yaccarino) to parents Bob Yaccarino and Isabella Bartolone Yaccarino, both immigrants from Italy.
She attended high school at Deer Park High School in New York. She went to Penn State University in 1981, graduating in 1985 from the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications with a bachelor's degree in telecommunications. In 2020, Penn State awarded Yaccarino with the Distinguished Alumni Award, the university's highest honor. This comes as Yaccarino has served on the College of Communication's Deans Advancement Council.
In 1996, Linda Yaccarino joined Turner Broadcasting System Inc, a global broadcasting company since purchased by Warner Bros. She began her career in media sales outlets before working her way up to holding the positions of both executive vice president and chief operating officer before joining NBCUniversal in 2011. During her time at Turner, Yaccarino was responsible for all advertising sales, sales marketing, and program acquisitions for the company's television networks, which included TNT, TBS, and truTV. She also oversaw acquisitions for sister networks TCM, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim.
Yaccarino began working for NBCUniversal in 2011, after her time at Turner Broadcasting. At NBCUniversal, she oversaw a team of around 2,000 people and was able to generate ad sales of around $100 billion since joining in 2011. During this time, she worked her way up from President of Cable Entertainment and Digital Advertising Sales, to Chairman of Advertising and Client Partnerships, to Chairman of Global Advertising and Partnerships.
During her time at NBCUniversal, she was responsible for all cable entertainment and digital advertising sales, including for USA, Syfy, Bravo Media, E! Entertainment, Oxygen Media, Style, G4, Sprout, Chiller, Cloo, and the respective digital platforms. These digital platforms included NBC.com, AccessHollywood.com, NBCSports.com, NBCOlympics.com, GolfChannel.com, DailyCandy, Swirl, Fandango, iVillage, and Television Without Pity.
Her achievements during this time included forging partnerships with many new media companies, including Twitter, Apple News, BuzzFeed, SnapChat, and YouTube. Some have suggested her most notable achievement at NBCUniversal was the creation of a unified, tech-enabled ad sales platform— known as One Platform—which replaced the previous approach of traditional fifteen different sales teams approaching the same advertisers. This has been credited with bringing the network's ad sales operation into the digital era. This was done in part through the development of nascent businesses in e-commerce and data to expand NBCUniversal beyond its reliance on traditional advertising. Yaccarino and her team were also instrumental in the launch of NBCUniversal's ad-supported streaming service, Peacock.
As early as 2012, Yaccarino was noted by industry insiders for her firm but fair approach to negotiations. Within the industry, this reputation earned her the nickname "velvet hammer" for being both polite in negotiations and in developing her relationships through the industry, but also being called a force and tough as nails. She has been noted as an influential leader, with many employees around her reportedly adopting her fashion style and mannerisms. Yaccarino is known for a signature look of thick-framed glasses, heels, and often colorful suits.
Linda Yaccarino has also served on several for-profit and nonprofit boards. This has included Ascena Retail Group, Hulu, Ad Council, Open AP, Mobile Parmeting Association, ACLD, The Female Quotient, and the World Economic Forum, where she serves as the chairperson on the Taskforce on Future of Work and sites on the Media, Entertainment, and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee.
Yaccarino has also worked with two presidents. First she worked with former President Donald Trump and was named to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition for a two-year term in 2018. And under President Joe Biden, Yaccarino worked with government agencies, including the White House and Pope Francis, to produce a Covid-19 vaccination campaign as part of her role as chair of the nonprofit advertising group the Ad Council.
In early 2023, Linda Yaccarino was appointed as the group chair of YMU, a UK-based management firm. As part of the role, Yaccarino is expected to work with the firm's CEO Mary Bekhait and is expected to bring new opportunities to YMU's client roster, which includes Paris Hilton, Simon Cowell, Emily Ratajkowski, and Steve Aoki.
It was announced in May of 2023 that Linda Yaccarino would be the next CEO of Twitter. This came after Elon Musk publicly asked if Twitter users thought he should step down as CEO, and the public poll found a slim majority of users thought he should step down. During this period, he promised users he would find a new CEO, who would be announced a few months later as Linda Yaccarino.
Twitter has gone through some difficulties since Elon Musk took over, including the loss of many advertisers on the platform, which has caused the platform to struggle to generate revenue, according to some reports. In this case, Yaccarino has been called exactly what Twitter needs, both for her ability to attract advertisers who trust Yaccarino based on her long history in the industry and her desire for the job and ability to challenge Musk.
Further, in his announcement tweet, Elon Musk noted that the role of the CEO would be focused on the business side of Twitter, while Musk would continue to focus on product design and new technology. Many industry insiders have said Yaccarino will fit this role, as she has the experience and the talent to lead the business, and she has the relationships with advertisers to bring many of them back to the platform. However, those same industry insiders have suggested that the success of Yaccarino in the CEO role will depend in large part on Musk, who is known to be unpredictable and capable of causing quick change. The announcement of Yaccarino as CEO reportedly caught her and the executives at NBCUniversal by surprise, with Yaccarino not having already informed her bosses, which led to her leaving in an awkward scenario at her previous employer.
Linda Yaccarino's appointment as CEO caused many Twitter users to be upset. The controversy, as it has been called, was over Yaccarino's professional history, which some users have found upsetting, as some take issue over Yaccarino's tenure with the World Economic Forum, and others took issue with her tenure with former President Trump's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. These users have further claimed that Elon Musk has gone back on his free speech promises as users see Linda Yaccarino more interested in bringing advertisers to the platform rather than those free speech goals; while on the other side, users have taken issue with specific accounts Yaccarino follows on Twitter. Many have pointed out that the controversy is largely over partisan users on Twitter who want a CEO who reflects their political opinions and beliefs. Some close to Yaccarino have reportedly stated her politics are very close to Musk's own.
Industry insiders have suggested that Linda Yaccarino was interested in the chief executive officer role at Twitter at least as early as February, where, during the Super Bowl, she was known to have reached out to Elon Musk as part of her role in NBCUniversal where they were set to discuss a partnership for the Super Bowl event. She had previously been known to express admiration for Twitter, calling it the single biggest content distribution partner for NBCUniversal at an ad industry event shortly after Musk took over.
This came as some industry professionals and peers suggested Yaccarino wanted the CEO of NBCUniversal position after previous CEO Jeff Shell stepped down; those same industry professionals suggested that it influenced Yaccarino's decision to leave when it seemed she was not chosen to replace Jeff Shell.
In April of 2023, at the Possible conference in Miami, Linda Yaccarino interviewed Elon Musk during a keynote titled "Twitter 2.0: From Conservations to Partnerships." The interview was marked by Yaccarino's consistent challenges on Musk's opinions and views and how those have shaped Twitter and are potentially holding Twitter back from growing further. During the interview, she got Musk to clarify his view of how advertisers can interact with the Twitter platform and where he draws the lines and expounded on some of his goals for the future of Twitter.
Linda Yaccarino and Elon Musk at the Possible conference in Miami 2023.
Many have called this a job interview, as the audience was made of marketing professionals who tend to think highly of Yaccarino and the work she has done; some also saw chemistry between Musk and Yaccarino during that interview. This included many noting that Yaccarino showed a willingness to push Elon Musk on many topics, helping to clarify his thinking and ensuring his commitment to those ideas.
During her time as an advertising industry executive, Linda Yaccarino has been awarded several industry honors. These have included The Hollywood Reporter's Women in Entertainment in Power 100 in 2013, an Adweek "Ten Most Powerful Women in TV" in 2011, and a "CEO of Tomorrow" by Business Week.
