Former TBS and TNT GM Brett Weitz Hired at X as Linda Yaccarino Overhauls Leadership Team
Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X (formerly Twitter) has unveiled a new leadership and sales team at the social platform, including a number of executives familiar to the media and entertainment business.
Among the new hires is Brett Weitz, the veteran TV executive who was most recently general manager of the Warner Bros. Discovery channels TNT, TBS, and truTV. Weitz left the company last year following the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger, after working at the company for 14 years.
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At X/Twitter, Weitz will be head of content, talent, and brand sales.
But he is far from the only notable new hire. Yaccarino also hired her former NBCUniversal colleague Carrie Stimmel to serve as its global agency leader, and to oversee sales operations and strategy. Stimmel had been chief growth officer for NBCU’s Olympics ad business.
And Monique Pintarelli, who had been the president of the programmatic advertising platform Teads, will join X/Twitter as head of the Americas, overseeing sales for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. Rob Hayes, the chief business officer for Dow Jones, will become lead for revenue operations.
Yaccarino is also doing a “complete leadership restructure” in its IT, legal, finance and operations departments, the company says.
“We’ll keep strengthening our structure to mirror the needs of our users and customers,” Yaccarino wrote in a memo to staff at the company Thursday. “I want to thank everyone for your hard work. Our progress is being felt and our momentum is building.”
Yaccarino joined Twitter earlier this year from NBCUniversal, where she was chairman of advertising sales. While she is CEO, she also has to work with an owner in Elon Musk who takes an active role in the platform’s direction.
While many of her new hires are focused on ad sales and revenue, the addition of Weitz does suggest that she sees a growing business in content and talent relations. When Twitter was a public company it cut a number of media deals with partners including NBCUniversal and Fox Sports. While many of those deals have continued, Musk has also tried to pivot the platform into being more creator-focused, adding revenue sharing and new video functionality.
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