Who is Linda Yaccarino, Elon Musk’s new Twitter CEO – 05/17/2023 – Market

Like most things relating to Elon Musk, it all started with a tweet.

“I’m excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter,” he wrote late Thursday afternoon (11th), setting off a whirlwind of speculation in media and technology circles about who the new CEO is. billionaire had chosen to head the social media group.

The rumors centered on Linda Yaccarino, a respected advertising veteran who has worked for Comcast’s NBCUniversal for the past 10 years. On Thursday, a spokesman announced that Yaccarino was unavailable due to “a backlog of rehearsals” for the group’s annual presentation to advertisers on Monday, the biggest event of the year in its business.

But on the morning of last Friday (12), the official news emerged that Yaccarino would leave the company, with immediate effect.

It was an appropriately chaotic start for Musk’s replacement as Twitter’s chief executive. Yaccarino will leave the traditional corridors of Madison Avenue behind and go to work in a startup that has been erratically managed by the tech entrepreneur since he acquired it for US$ 44 billion last year.

Yaccarino, 60, is a very important figure in advertising and has strong relationships with marketing professionals and advertising agencies, as well as links with the traditional structure of world business, such as the World Economic Forum, of which she is one of the presidents.

Twitter investors are hoping Yaccarino will be a steady hand in repairing Musk’s rocky relationship with advertisers, who are the company’s main source of revenue. The appointment comes as Musk has struggled to keep the platform’s finances under control, leading a dramatic restructuring and cost-cutting effort that critics say has caused internal chaos and technical problems for users.

After the acquisition of Twitter in October, Musk, who declares himself an “absolutist defender of freedom of expression”, initially tried to reach out to marketers, promising that the platform would not become a “hellscape”, despite his plans to relax content moderation.

However, many major advertising agencies and brands chose to suspend their advertising purchases on the platform, which reduced Twitter’s revenue by around 50% and prompted Musk to lash out and threaten to “namely identify and shame” those involved. . In some cases, he has personally called the chief executives of brands that have reduced Twitter advertising to reprimand them.

“If she shows up, and she basically has the power to tell Musk what needs to happen, and if he really leaves her alone to do what’s necessary, almost all of the money [da publicidade] she’ll be back, and then some,” said Brian Wieser, a former executive at advertising group WPP and a veteran media analyst. “It’s a testament to how well-regarded she is in the industry and how strong her relationships are.”

Advertising experts say Yaccarino’s biggest obstacle to restoring Twitter’s business could be Musk himself, who is known for his unorthodox management style and for turning against those who challenge him.

“The challenge she faces is Elon,” said David Jones, chief executive of The Brandtech Group and former chief executive of advertising group Havas.

Yaccarino rose through the ranks of major publicly traded television companies over the past three decades, leading a team of thousands of people as head of publicity at NBCUniversal, where he oversaw annual revenues of more than $10 billion. His presence will inject professionalism into Twitter, where Musk has cut staff by nearly 90% and stipulated that the company’s automatic response to emails containing questions from journalists would be a poop emoji.

Yaccarino’s Twitter feed, which she started just three months ago, is a mix of photos from industry events, promos from Comcast’s Peacock streaming service and fashion commentary. “Anna Wintour is everything to me!!!”, she wrote on the night of the Met Gala.

Growing up in “a very traditional Italian Catholic family”, she is known for entertaining advertising executives at her “villa” in Italy after the annual Cannes Lions conference in southern France.

Admirers say she is a consummate relationship builder and could help turn around the company’s advertising business, which has long lagged behind larger peers like Meta in terms of revenue, features and sophistication.

“There’s no one who would turn down a meeting with Linda, and there’s no question about that,” said one veteran advertising executive, adding that she was an “ardent supporter of broadcast and cable advertising” but that in the past , “somewhat downplayed the value of social media for building brands”.

At NBCUniversal, Yaccarino helped drive the launch of Peacock, Comcast’s streaming service, and pushed the industry to change outdated practices. Musk said Yaccarino would “mainly focus on business operations” at Twitter.

Although they are a seemingly odd couple, Yaccarino and Musk seem to share political views. “She doesn’t necessarily fit the profile of left-wing executives,” said the veteran advertising executive. “If I put her anywhere on the spectrum, she would be like a Republican in the [Ronald] Reagan”. Another media executive said that she was known as a fan of former US President Donald Trump.

Musk and Yaccarino also share a penchant for spectacle. Yaccarino, who is a constant presence at the sector’s flashy events, has said that if he wasn’t working in advertising, he would want to run for mayor of New York City.

When news of his hiring broke, Yaccarino’s ties to the World Economic Forum provoked backlash among Musk’s most conspiracy-theoretic fans, many of whom share a deep distrust of international political organizations.

Musk, who in January described the World Economic Forum as “ever closer to becoming an unelected world government,” addressed fears that Yaccarino’s connections would undermine the free speech agenda he champions, writing that “the commitment to open source transparency and acceptance of a wide range of viewpoints remains unchanged.”

Some executives have questioned just how much power Yaccarino will actually have. A top industry executive said it was understandable that Musk has retained the chief executive post, and that he will call the shots. The entrepreneur made it clear that he will continue to lead the product and engineering sectors, in which he is best qualified. However, so far at least, the flurry of product changes, such as the introduction of the new Twitter Blue premium service, have not won over many users, and the platform has seen an uptick in its number of downfalls since the takeover.

Media analyst Wieser warned that leaving his position established by a role at Twitter was a “very strong beta situation” for Yaccarino. “Either the thing goes away or it will be a spectacular success”.

Translated by Paulo Migliacci