Elon Musk has named a new chief executive of Twitter, just over six months after his controversial takeover of the social media company.
The billionaire said Linda Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, would oversee business operations at the site, which has been struggling to make money.
He said she would start in six weeks.
Mr Musk will remain involved as executive chairman and chief technology officer.
“Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” he wrote on Twitter, confirming the decision a day after he had stoked speculation by writing that he had found a new boss without revealing their identity.
Mr Musk – who bought the social media platform last year for $44bn – had been under pressure to find someone else to lead the company and refocus his attention on his other businesses, which include electric carmaker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX.
With fewer than 10 per cent of Fortune 500 tech companies headed by women, Ms Yaccarino will become that rare example of a woman at the top of a major tech firm, after rising steadily through the ranks of some of America’s biggest media companies.
Who is Linda Yaccarino?
Ms Yaccarino was raised in an Italian-American family, with a father who was a police officer and a mother who never went to college.
After graduating from Penn State, she worked at Turner Entertainment for 15 years before joining NBCUniversal, where she oversaw roughly 2000 people, and was involved with the launch of its streaming service.
Her work has been marked by close collaborations with big brands, finding opportunities for product placement and convincing them to advertise alongside television shows – even ones with a reputation for edgy content, such as Sex and the City when it first launched.
She has also built relationships in new media with the likes of Apple News, Snapchat and YouTube.
A 2005 profile in an industry publication portrayed her as a busy, married mother-of-two children, then aged 13 and 9.
“I have absolutely no hobbies,” she said at the time.
Business Insider’s Claire Atkinson has followed Ms Yaccarino’s career for two decades and said her background in advertising could help Twitter, which has seen its ad sales drop sharply since Mr Musk’s takeover.
“If Twitter are looking to monetise better than they have been, then that would be the place to start and Linda would be the ideal person to make that happen,” the chief media correspondent said.
“She’s the kind of person that I can imagine Elon Musk needs,” Ms Atkinson added: “She won’t be rolled over.”
Source: BBC
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