When Elon Musk introduced final month that he had employed Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s chief government, he mentioned he was “excited” to convey on somebody who may “focus primarily on business operations.”
But simply over three weeks into her new job, Ms. Yaccarino, the previous head of promoting at NBCUniversal, has been prevented from engaged on a key element of what she was employed to do: drum up promoting for Twitter.
Ms. Yaccarino, 60, has spoken with a few of Twitter’s advertisers about unsavory content material on the positioning, 4 individuals with data of the conversations mentioned. But she has not engaged in public hobnobbing and hands-on negotiating with advertisers to extend Twitter’s income.
That’s as a result of a contractual settlement with NBCUniversal prevented Ms. Yaccarino — at the very least initially — from engaged on promoting offers that will battle with the pursuits of her former employer, three individuals aware of the association mentioned.
It is all a part of an adjustment as Ms. Yaccarino settles into her new function and experiences to a brand new boss. After working for conventional media organizations in New York for many years, she is now serving to to guide a San Francisco-based social media firm that has undergone fast adjustments underneath Mr. Musk, who purchased Twitter final yr.
Restricted from hammering out promoting offers, Ms. Yaccarino has as a substitute repaired at the very least one relationship, between Twitter and Google; talked with regulators; and targeted on worker morale. She has held completely happy hours and tried rallying employees with mission statements and extra inner communication.
“Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication,” she wrote this month in her first companywide electronic mail, which The New York Times obtained. “We’re on the precipice of making history.”
Twitter didn’t make Ms. Yaccarino, a longtime Madison Avenue energy participant, accessible for an interview. An individual near her mentioned the noncompete clause prolonged just for her first few weeks at Twitter, whereas one other mentioned it was troublesome for NBCUniversal to implement. The clause’s expiration date was unclear.
Mr. Musk didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Ms. Yaccarino started as Twitter’s chief government on June 5. Two days earlier, the native Long Islander and longtime New Yorker tweeted a photograph of the Manhattan skyline with the message: “Bay Area views coming soon!” She took at the very least one NBCUniversal colleague along with her to Twitter.
Mr. Musk had not made a companywide announcement about Ms. Yaccarino’s hiring at Twitter, three staff mentioned. Instead, in an electronic mail to the corporate’s gross sales staff earlier than Ms. Yaccarino began, her appointment was the second bullet level under an replace a couple of new characteristic for advertisers.
Ms. Yaccarino rapidly struck an upbeat observe at Twitter.
At an inner advert gross sales assembly on June 12, she addressed the state of Twitter’s promoting. Mr. Musk had eliminated guardrails on the website, permitting misinformation and poisonous content material to flourish and deterring manufacturers from promoting. The firm’s U.S. advert income has fallen almost 60 p.c, and Mr. Musk has mentioned he expects income this yr to be round $3 billion, down from $5.1 billion in 2021.
Ms. Yaccarino acknowledged that some “big brands” had stayed away from the platform, based on a recording of the assembly that The Times obtained, and mentioned she and different gross sales staff must have interaction in “hand-to-hand combat” to influence them to return. She didn’t point out her incapacity on the time to debate advert offers with shoppers.
Ms. Yaccarino additionally mentioned she would take a distinct place from Mr. Musk’s rocky relationship with the media. Her technique, she mentioned, is to “have very good relationships with them so they become our advocates or mouthpieces to amplify our strategies.”
But Ms. Yaccarino additionally made it clear that she knew who was in cost. She referred to Mr. Musk, who was not in attendance, as “the boss.”
Two days later, Ms. Yaccarino met with Twitter’s traders and lenders in San Francisco alongside Mr. Musk, an individual aware of the assembly mentioned. Together, they offered their plans for the corporate to focus extra on video, work with influencers and news publishers, and combine cost capabilities. Reuters reported earlier on the presentation.
While Ms. Yaccarino’s noncompete clause with NBC held her again from main promoting discussions, she stayed busy.
David Cohen, the chief government of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a commerce group, mentioned that he had emailed with Ms. Yaccarino and that she had been on “a kind of fact-finding tour.” She is leveraging her relationships within the promoting business to discern the place Twitter stands on points similar to easy methods to maintain advertisements away from objectionable content material, he mentioned, including, “She’s definitely listening.”
Yet when Publicis Groupe, one of many world’s largest promoting companies, held a convention in Paris on June 16, its chairman interviewed Mr. Musk with out Ms. Yaccarino, who was in San Francisco. During the journey, Mr. Musk additionally lunched with Bernard Arnault, the founding father of LVMH, the world’s largest luxurious firm and a significant advertiser.
Ms. Yaccarino additionally didn’t seem final week on the Cannes Lions promoting competition, a glittering networking occasion on the French Riviera that’s typically thought of the apex of the advert business calendar. Twitter considerably scaled again its spending and presence there in contrast with earlier years.
Still, Ms. Yaccarino tweeted that she was soliciting suggestions from Cannes attendees. “I’m here for ALL of it!” she wrote.
She had remained in San Francisco at Twitter’s headquarters, the place she hosted a European Union delegation led by Commissioner Thierry Breton. The group was testing whether or not Twitter’s content material moderation techniques would adjust to a brand new European regulation, the Digital Services Act, that holds social platforms accountable for policing illicit content material and disinformation. It goes into impact in August.
Ms. Yaccarino has made progress in some areas, together with serving to to fix Twitter’s relationship with Google. That relationship frayed underneath Mr. Musk when Twitter partly stopped paying Google for cloud computing companies. Twitter owed Google greater than $42 million in unpaid invoices and was attempting to cease its use of Google’s merchandise by the top of June, based on an inner memo obtained by The Times.
Ms. Yaccarino spoke this month to Thomas Kurian, the top of Google Cloud, to resolve the problem and ordered the invoice paid, an individual aware of the dialog mentioned. She additionally persuaded Mr. Musk to embrace the brand new developments, the particular person mentioned.
Google declined to remark. Bloomberg News reported earlier that Twitter had resumed paying Google.
Ms. Yaccarino has additionally tried reaching out extra to Twitter’s work drive, which has shrunk greater than 75 p.c via layoffs and different departures since Mr. Musk purchased the corporate. Twitter framed a duplicate of considered one of her motivational tweets about “wearing 4 inch heels” whereas working as an government and hung it in a eating widespread space within the San Francisco workplace. She has additionally held completely happy hours there and in New York, 4 present and former staff mentioned.
And she has been relentlessly optimistic in her conversations, two of these individuals mentioned. In her assembly with the gross sales staff this month, Ms. Yaccarino mentioned Twitter had an “opportunity that comes out of being challenged the last bunch of months.”
“Point me in the right directions,” she mentioned. “I do know what it’s going to take.”
Source: www.nytimes.com