Linda Yaccarino, Twitter's New CEO, Is a Penn State Graduate

Yaccarino

Penn State loves to promote the number of CEOs it has graduated. The latest is Twitter's Linda Yaccarino, who becomes one of the most influential people in guiding online discourse.

Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022, announced Friday that Yaccarino will be Twitter's new CEO. Yaccarino, a 1985 Penn State graduate, arrives at Twitter from NBCUniversal Media, where she was chair of advertising and global partnerships. Yaccarino has worked in media for three decades at NBCUniversal and Turner. She also has served at the World Economic Forum, the Ad Council and on the boards of several organizations.

Yaccarino has worked with several presidential administrations. She served on the President's Council on Sports Fitness and Nutrition during the Trump administration and, as chair of the Ad Council, partnered with the Biden administration and Pope Francis to produce a COVID-19 vaccination campaign. 

In 2020, Penn State awarded Yaccarino, who graduated with a degree in telecommunications, with the Distinguished Alumni Award, the university's highest honor. Yaccarino is an alumni fellow with Penn State's Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and has served on the College of Communications' Dean's Advancement Council. And according to her Twitter bio, she's a Penn State football fan. Penn State hosts West Virginia in September for the debut of NBC's new Big Ten Saturday Night broadcast.

New @Twitter CEO 🤝 @PennStateAlums

Congrats @LindaYacc, hope to see you back in Happy Valley soon! 😎#WeAre #700Kworldwide pic.twitter.com/xWxPeffasN

— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) May 12, 2023

According to the Penn State Alumni Association, "Yaccarino is very active within the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. She is an Alumni Fellow, and has served as commencement speaker, addressed the Penn State Forum, hosted on- and off-campus recruiting events, and mentored countless alumni, many of them at NBCUniversal."

Yaccarino is the latest CEO whom Penn State has graduated, which the university promotes often. According to a 2018 LinkedIn survey, Penn State ranks second among U.S. colleges in graduated CEOs, behind only Stanford and ahead of Harvard Business School, Berkeley, and MIT.

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