Behind any show, on any screen, there’s an entire economic infrastructure at work. No person has had a bigger hand in shaping it than Linda Yaccarino. Every day, she continues to transform the $70 billion premium video ecosystem. As Chairman of Global Advertising and Partnerships, she is the strategic and operational bridge across the entirety of NBCUniversal's global networks, properties, and business units. She is responsible for stewarding the company’s industry-leading portfolio of linear networks, digital and streaming platforms, distribution partnerships, and client relationships. Yaccarino oversees all Global, National and Local Ad Sales, Partnerships, Marketing, Ad Tech, Data, Measurement, and Strategic Initiatives.
Yaccarino and her 2,000-member global team help connect emerging and established brands to hundreds of millions of viewers, driving economic impact across every sector. Since joining NBCU in 2011, her team has generated more than $100 billion in ad sales, expanded the company’s reach globally, forged groundbreaking ad partnerships, launched the first ad-supported streaming service, and made massive investments in data and technology capabilities. She is the first ad chief to develop a unified tech-enabled trading system, One Platform, and create a united monetization and enterprise strategy—a practice that has become ubiquitous in the marketplace. In other words, Yaccarino has reengineered the advertising business for the 21st century.
It has long been her vision to serve all audiences on all screens, creating a single, scaled advertising offering for all businesses, no matter where they operate—locally, nationally, or globally. This vision led to the creation of One Platform, a unified trading system, as well as NBCUnified, a first-party identity data platform that unites the company’s consumer touchpoints. Through these innovations, Yaccarino is streamlining the ad marketplace, creating more accurate measurement currencies, and maintaining the most pristine ad-ecosystem in the industry. Each year, her division hosts the media and technology industry’s leading developer conference, which brings together marketing and ad-tech partners to build a better, more data-driven ecosystem.
In addition to pushing the industry to improve the viewing experience, embrace digital viewing, and adopt new measurement metrics, Yaccarino is also constantly working to diversify NBCU’s revenue streams. This has culminated in Peacock, the ad-supported streaming service, for which her team oversees its full monetization strategy. Yaccarino’s team is also responsible for pioneering data-driven commercial innovations and forging partnerships with companies like Apple News, Buzzfeed, Holler, ReachTV, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, and more—all to increase NBCU’s digital footprint. As a result, NBCU has showcased a slate of record-breaking tentpole events, including the most-streamed Super Bowl and the most-engaged-with Olympic Games in history.
Since the acquisition of Sky, Yaccarino has scaled her transformative approach to create the first global premium video advertising solution. She has also led the development of the first-ever combined ad and sponsorship program for the LA 2028 Olympics. And to prepare NBCU employees for the future of work, her division created a state-of-the-art Center of Excellence, designed to democratize insights, resources, and training materials industry-wide
As an industry advocate, Yaccarino has called for a return to values-based, trusted partnerships, spotlighting the most important issues facing her colleagues and peers. As 2021-2022 Ad Council Chair, Yaccarino partnered with the business community, the White House, and government agencies to create a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, featuring Pope Francis and reaching over 200 million Americans. At NBCU, she uses the power of media to advance equity and helps to launch DEI-focused initiatives, including BOLD, a program for employing veterans; #ShesMy, a campaign to uplift women and girls; Scene in Color, a collaboration with Target to elevate emerging BIPOC film creatives; and a partnership with Telemundo to release a Latina-centric storytelling guide.
New York Women in Communication honored Yaccarino with a Matrix Award. She’s also been recognized as one of Business Insider’s “Top 10 People Transforming Advertising”; Adweek’s “Ten Most Powerful Women in TV”; Hollywood Reporter’s“ Women in Entertainment: Power 100”; and Variety’s “Power Women of New York.” Yaccarino was inducted into the B&C’s Hall of Fame, received the UJA Foundation’s Mac Dane Award for Humanitarian Excellence the Distinguished Alumni Award from Penn State University, and has delivered the Don Davis Lecture in Advertising Ethics.
