Twitter chief Elon Musk is in discussions to appoint Linda Yaccarino, the head of global partnerships and advertising at NBCUniversal, as CEO of Twitter, according to two people familiar with the matter.
According to these people, the talks have reached a higher stage. They said that Yaccarino and Musk have been talking on the matter for several weeks. At a Miami advertising event last month, Yaccarino interviewed Musk on stage.
Musk had earlier on Thursday said to have chosen a CEO for Twitter, but did not mention any name. However, he revealed about the new CEO in a tweet, “She will start in about 6 weeks!”. According to his tweet, the responsibility of heading Twitter’s product and software would be on him he would serve as executive chair and “CTO”, that is, chief technology officer.
Even after appointing new CEO, Elon Musk, who paid $44 billion for Twitter last year, would take control of the Twitter business. He has shown that Twitter belongs to him and will be run as per him, by firing more than 75% of its 7,500 employees, appointing his own executives, and altering its features and business model. Also, he turned Twitter private and that means its internal information is no more public.
But being a CEO of a company like Twitter is no cakewalk. Twitter has a degrading advertising business which is its main source of revenue. It also has a challenge of paying debt of around $1.5 billion a year from the sale to Musk.
Why Linda Yaccarino may be the right pick?
Elon Musk has picked his CEO strategically as Yaccarino will get Twitter deep inside the advertising industry, additionally; she also has a thorough experience in the media sector.
Also, given her long course of career at NBCUniversal, Yaccarino’s contact list contains a long list of CEOs of various advertising companies, which is highly crucial for Twitter. During her long career in advertising field, she has moved to the top layers and has made crucial marketing partnerships. At NBCUniversal, she worked on enhancing streaming avenues while profiting the company with $100 billion from advertising sales.
