NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino resigns as sources say she’s in talks to be Twitter CEO

NBCUniversal international promoting chief Linda Yaccarino has resigned, the corporate mentioned Friday.

The announcement comes a day after Elon Musk mentioned through Twitter there could be a brand new CEO of the social media web site, though he did not identify the brand new individual. Musk mentioned in his tweet the individual would begin in about six weeks.

Yaccarino was in superior talks for the position, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin reported, citing sources.

Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in 2011 and had risen to the highest of the corporate’s international promoting business. On Monday, the advert chief was slated to participate in NBCUniversal’s Upfront occasion at Radio City – the gross sales presentation the corporate, together with its media friends, make to the promoting trade yearly in May.

The longtime advert govt brings a wealth of relationships with prime chief advertising officers and different promoting executives to Twitter at a time when the platform has seen advertisers flee – due to this fact dropping billions of {dollars} – after Musk’s takeover final 12 months.

Musk accomplished his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October of final 12 months. Soon after, he fired the corporate’s prime brass and laid off 1000’s of workers.

Many firms halted their advert spending on the platform since Twitter has seen a rise in offensive speech and rhetoric, as a number of advocacy teams have documented. In an try to make up for the lack of advert income, Musk created a brand new subscription service, Twitter Blue, which gives options resembling the power to compose longer tweets.

Yaccarino and Musk sat collectively in a keynote interview at a advertising convention in Florida in mid-April. During the dialog, the 2 mentioned the position entrepreneurs play in the way forward for Twitter, in addition to its place within the cultural dialog.

During the convention, Musk reportedly tried to reassure advertisers that Twitter was a good place for his or her manufacturers.

Yaccarino’s exit from NBCUniversal comes weeks after Jeff Shell was ousted as the corporate’s CEO after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with an worker. Rather than changing Shell, NBCUniversal’s prime executives will report back to dad or mum firm Comcast President Mike Cavanagh.

On Friday, NBCUniversal mentioned Yaccarino would depart the corporate, efficient instantly, and Mark Marshall, the present president of promoting gross sales and consumer partnerships would change into interim chairman of the corporate’s promoting and partnerships group.

Marshall will report back to Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. Lazarus and Marshall are doubtless to participate in NBCUniversal’s Upfront presentation on Monday, CNBC’s David Faber and Julia Boorstin reported on Friday.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the dad or mum firm of CNBC.