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When Elon Musk introduced final month that he had employed Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s chief govt, he said he was “excited” to carry on somebody who might “focus totally on enterprise operations.”
However 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 part 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 folks with data of the conversations mentioned. However 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 — no less than initially — from engaged on promoting offers that will battle with the pursuits of her former employer, three folks acquainted with the association mentioned.
It’s 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 speedy modifications beneath Mr. Musk, who purchased Twitter final yr.
Restricted from hammering out promoting offers, Ms. Yaccarino has as an alternative repaired no less than one relationship, between Twitter and Google; talked with regulators; and targeted on worker morale. She has held completely satisfied hours and tried rallying employees with mission statements and extra inner communication.
“Twitter is on a mission to change into the world’s most correct real-time data supply and a worldwide city sq. for communication,” she wrote this month in her first companywide e mail, which The New York Occasions obtained. “We’re on the precipice of constructing historical past.”
Twitter didn’t make Ms. Yaccarino, a longtime Madison Avenue energy participant, out there 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 govt on June 5. Two days earlier, the native Lengthy Islander and longtime New Yorker tweeted a photograph of the Manhattan skyline with the message: “Bay Space views coming quickly!” She took no less than 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. As a substitute, in an e mail to the corporate’s gross sales workforce earlier than Ms. Yaccarino began, her appointment was the second bullet level under an replace a few new function for advertisers.
Ms. Yaccarino shortly 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 corporate’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 “massive manufacturers” had stayed away from the platform, in response to a recording of the assembly that The Occasions obtained, and mentioned she and different gross sales staff must interact in “hand-to-hand fight” to steer them to return. She didn’t point out her lack of ability on the time to debate advert offers with purchasers.
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 superb relationships with them in order that they change into our advocates or mouthpieces to amplify our methods.”
However 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 acquainted with the assembly mentioned. Collectively, they introduced their plans for the corporate to focus extra on video, work with influencers and information publishers, and combine fee capabilities. Reuters reported earlier on the presentation.
Whereas Ms. Yaccarino’s noncompete clause with NBC held her again from main promoting discussions, she stayed busy.
David Cohen, the chief govt of the Interactive Promoting Bureau, a commerce group, mentioned that he had emailed with Ms. Yaccarino and that she had been on “a form of fact-finding tour.” She is leveraging her relationships within the promoting trade to discern the place Twitter stands on points reminiscent of find out how to preserve adverts away from objectionable content material, he mentioned, including, “She’s positively listening.”
But 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. Through 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 pageant, a glittering networking occasion on the French Riviera that’s typically thought-about the apex of the advert trade calendar. Twitter considerably scaled again its spending and presence there in contrast with earlier years.
Nonetheless, Ms. Yaccarino tweeted that she was soliciting suggestions from Cannes attendees. “I’m right 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 programs would adjust to a brand new European legislation, the Digital Providers 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 beneath 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, in response to an inner memo obtained by The Occasions.
Ms. Yaccarino spoke this month to Thomas Kurian, the top of Google Cloud, to resolve the difficulty and ordered the invoice paid, an individual acquainted with the dialog mentioned. She additionally persuaded Mr. Musk to embrace the brand new developments, the individual mentioned.
Google declined to remark. Bloomberg Information reported earlier that Twitter had resumed paying Google.
Ms. Yaccarino has additionally tried reaching out extra to Twitter’s work pressure, which has shrunk greater than 75 p.c via layoffs and different departures since Mr. Musk purchased the corporate. Twitter framed a replica of one in every of her motivational tweets about “carrying 4 inch heels” whereas working as an govt and hung it in a eating widespread space within the San Francisco workplace. She has additionally held completely satisfied hours there and in New York, 4 present and former staff mentioned.
And he or she has been relentlessly optimistic in her conversations, two of these folks mentioned. In her assembly with the gross sales workforce this month, Ms. Yaccarino mentioned Twitter had an “alternative that comes out of being challenged the final bunch of months.”
“Level me in the suitable instructions,” she mentioned. “I do know what it’s going to take.”
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