Twitter’s next CEO is a Penn State graduate. Check out her career highlights, background

The pick to lead one of the world’s largest social media platforms has some connections to central Pennsylvania.

Penn State alumna Linda Yaccarino will become Twitter’s next chief executive officer, according to the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. CNN reported Yaccarino stepped down Friday morning as NBCUniversal’s chairman of global advertising and partnerships less than 24 hours after Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion last year, said he found a new CEO for the company who would start in roughly six weeks.

Before stepping down, Yaccarino had worked with NBCUniversal since 2011. Throughout her tenure, she served as the “strategic and operational bridge across the entirety of NBCUniversal’s global networks, properties and business units,” according to her company biography.

Yaccarino and her team spearheaded a number of initiatives for the media conglomerate, including generating more than $100 billion in advertisement sales, launching streaming services like Peacock and forging relationships with other tech and broadcast companies to help NBCUniversal showcase Super Bowls, Olympic Games and other “record-breaking tentpole events.” Her career with the company began through an internship with NBCUniversal’s media planning department.

Yaccarino previously spent nearly two decades with Turner Entertainment and, in part, is credited with helping the company’s ad sales operation move into the digital future. By the end of her tenure, she served as Turner Entertainment’s executive vice president and chief operating officer of advertising sales and marketing and acquisitions.

Outside of work, Yaccarino served for two years on former President Donald Trump’s Council on Sports Fitness and Nutrition. She later partnered with the administration of President Joe Biden to help create a COVID-19 vaccine campaign featuring Pope Francis.

Yaccarino graduated in 1985 from Penn State’s Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications with a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications. Nearly three decades later, she was named an Alumni Fellow — an award recognizing Penn State graduates “who have proven to be outstanding in their chosen field.”

In 2020, Yaccarino received the Distinguished Alumni Award, which is said to be to be the highest honor presented to university alumni.

Accolades aside, Yaccarino has remained connected to Penn State and its communications school by hosting recruiting events and mentoring “countless alumni,” according to her Penn State Alumni Association directory page. Yaccarino also delivered a speech through the Penn State Forum Speaker Series in 2017 and served as the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications’ commencement speaker in May 2014.

This story was updated at 11:59 a.m. Friday, May 12 to reflect Musk’s confirmation of Yaccarino’s hire.