NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino resigns as sources say she’s in talks to be Twitter CEO
Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising and partnerships at NBC Universal Media LLC, speaks during a panel session on the opening day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018.
Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
NBCUniversal global advertising chief Linda Yaccarino has resigned, the company said Friday.
The announcement comes a day after Elon Musk said via Twitter there would be a new CEO of the social media website, although he didn’t name the new person. Musk said in his tweet the person would start in about six weeks.
Yaccarino was in advanced talks for the role, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin reported, citing sources.
Yaccarino joined NBCUniversal in 2011 and had risen to the top of the company’s global advertising business. On Monday, the ad chief was slated to take part in NBCUniversal’s Upfront event at Radio City – the sales presentation the company, along with its media peers, make to the advertising industry every year in May.
The longtime ad executive brings a wealth of relationships with top chief marketing officers and other advertising executives to Twitter at a time when the platform has seen advertisers flee – therefore losing billions of dollars – after Musk’s takeover last year.
Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October of last year. Soon after, he fired the company’s top brass and laid off thousands of employees.
Many companies halted their ad spending on the platform since Twitter has seen an increase in offensive speech and rhetoric, as several advocacy groups have documented. In an attempt to make up for the loss of ad revenue, Musk created a new subscription service, Twitter Blue, which offers features such as the ability to compose longer tweets.
Yaccarino and Musk sat together in a keynote interview at a marketing conference in Florida in mid-April. During the conversation, the two discussed the role marketers play in the future of Twitter, as well as its position in the cultural conversation.
During the conference, Musk reportedly tried to reassure advertisers that Twitter was a respectable place for their brands.
Yaccarino’s exit from NBCUniversal comes weeks after Jeff Shell was ousted as the company’s CEO after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with an employee. Rather than replacing Shell, NBCUniversal’s top executives will report to parent company Comcast President Mike Cavanagh.
On Friday, NBCUniversal said Yaccarino would leave the company, effective immediately, and Mark Marshall, the current president of advertising sales and client partnerships would become interim chairman of the company’s advertising and partnerships group.
Marshall will report to Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. Lazarus and Marshall are likely to take part in NBCUniversal’s Upfront presentation on Monday, CNBC’s David Faber and Julia Boorstin reported on Friday.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella leaves after attending a meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 30, 2024.
Willy Kurniawan | Reuters
Microsoft on Tuesday said that it’s laying off 3% of employees across all levels, teams and geographies.
“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.
The company reported better-than-expected results, with $25.8 billion in quarterly net income, and an upbeat forecast in late April.
Microsoft had 228,000 employees worldwide at the end of June, meaning that the move will affect thousands of employees.
It’s likely Microsoft’s largest round of layoffs since the elimination of 10,000 roles in 2023. In January the company announced a small round of layoffs that were performance-based. These new job cuts are not related to performance, the spokesperson said.
One objective is to reduce layers of management, the spokesperson said.
Last week cybersecurity software provider CrowdStrike announced it would lay off 5% of its workforce.
In January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts that the company would make sales execution changes that led to lower growth than expected in Azure cloud revenue that wasn’t tied to artificial intelligence. Performance in AI cloud growth outdid internal projections.
“How do you really tweak the incentives, go-to-market?” Nadella said. “At a time of platform shifts, you kind of want to make sure you lean into even the new design wins, and you just don’t keep doing the stuff that you did in the previous generation.”
On Monday, Microsoft shares stopped trading at $449.26, the highest price so far this year. They closed at a record $467.56 last July.
WATCH: Microsoft will continue as the best performing mega-cap stock in 2025: D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria
Hinge Health co-founders Gabriel Mecklenburg (left) and Daniel Perez (right).
Courtesy of Hinge Health
Hinge Health said in a filing on Tuesday that it plans to raise up to $437 million in its upcoming initial public offering.
The digital physical therapy startup filed its initial prospectus in March, and it updated the document with an expected pricing range for its Class A common stock of $28 to $32 per share. Hinge said it plans to sell about 13.7 million shares in the offering.
Based on the number of Class A and Class B shares outstanding after the offering, the deal would value the company at $2.42 billion in the middle of the range, though that number could be higher on a fully diluted basis.
Hinge, founded in 2014, uses software to help patients treat acute musculoskeletal injuries, chronic pain and carry out post-surgery rehabilitation remotely. The company was co-founded by CEO Daniel Perez and Executive Chairman Gabriel Mecklenburg, who have both experienced personal struggles with physical rehabilitation.
Three weeks after Hinge filed its initial prospectus, President Donald Trump announced a sweeping tariff policy that plunged U.S. markets into turmoil. That volatility has caused several companies, including online lender Klarna and ticket marketplace StubHub, to delay their long-awaited IPOs.
Hinge is forging ahead anyway, and a second digital health startup, virtual chronic care company Omada Health, filed to go public on Friday. Both IPOs will be closely watched by the digital health sector, which has been mostly devoid of public offerings since 2021.
During its first quarter, Hinge said that revenue climbed 50% to $123.8 million, up from $82.7 million during the same period last year. Hinge reported $117.3 million in revenue during its fourth quarter, up 44% from the same period in 2023.
The company plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “HNGE.”
Hinge has raised more than $1 billion from investors including Tiger Global Management and Coatue Management, and it boasted a $6.2 billion valuation as of October 2021, the last time the company raised outside funding. The biggest institutional shareholders are venture firms Insight Partners and Atomico, which own 19% and 15% of the stock, respectively, according to its prospectus.
WATCH: IPO window likely to open in first half of 2026: PitchBook
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