Elon Musk recently announced Linda Yaccarino would become Twitter’s chief executive, but some are worried she will become known for something else – the “glass cliff” phenomenon.

Ms Yaccarino has been advertising chief at NBC Universal for several years, and will focus on business operations at Twitter.

Meanwhile, Mr Musk said he would look after product design and new technology.

Mr Musk has long said he intended to find a new leader for Twitter.

In a Twitter poll he started last December, 57.5 per cent of users voted for him to step down as CEO of the social media platform.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Mr Musk said then.

After the announcement of her appointment, Ms Yaccarino tweeted that while she wasn’t as “prolific” as Mr Musk, she was “committed” to the future of Twitter.

“Your feedback is VITAL to that future. I’m here for all of it,” she said.

“Let’s keep the conversation going and build Twitter 2.0 together!”

Although Mr Musk seems committed to transforming Twitter into “X” – the “everything app”, in his words – there are already concerns that Ms Yaccarino and Twitter are doomed.

Since Mr Musk acquired Twitter, advertisers have fled the platform, worried that their ads could appear next to inappropriate content after the company sacked nearly 80 per cent of its staff.

Mr Musk earlier this year acknowledged Twitter had suffered a massive decline in ad revenue. There have also been issues with Twitter’s verification system since he took charge, as well as claims he is allowing misinformation to run rampant.

Given Twitter’s problems, there have been suggestions Ms Yaccarino could be standing at the edge of the metaphoric glass cliff – and it’s nothing to do with her business acumen.

Tweet from @lindayacc

Evidence for theory

A ‘glass cliff’ refers to the situation when a woman, or an under-represented minority, is promoted to the top position within a company or an organisation during a crisis, which ultimately leads to their demise.

The term was coined by Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam back in 2005 and speaks to a deeper issue of representation in positions of power.

A study from 2013 that looked at CEO transitions in Fortune 500 companies over 15 years found some merit to the glass-cliff theory.

“Consistent with the theory of the glass cliff, we find that occupational minorities – defined as white women and men and women of colour – are more likely than white men to be promoted CEO of weakly performing firms,” the study’s abstract says.

“Though we find no significant differences in tenure length between occupational minorities and white men, we find that when firm performance declines during the tenure of occupational minority CEOs, these leaders are likely to be replaced by white men.”

However, other studies had found no evidence of the glass cliff, Forbes reported.

The term isn’t exclusive to women taking on roles at huge companies, but also in politics, as with Liz Truss’s brief tenure as British prime minister, for example.

Ms Truss became PM after Boris Johnson resigned. She lasted just over 40 days in office, but her time in Downing Street was marred by the war in Ukraine, the economic crisis and recovering from the pandemic.

In business, another example is Marissa Mayer, who became CEO of Yahoo! in 2012, when it had been losing out to Google. When Verizon acquired Yahoo! in 2017, she was let go.

‘Impossible situation’

Jo-Ellen Pozner, a business professor at Santa Clara University, told the Associated Press Ms Yaccarino was about to step into an “impossible situation”.

“Her credentials are impeccable and she’s been extremely successful so far. But she’s also been in settings where her success was achievable,” Professor Pozner said.

“I mean no disrespect to her or to diminish her in the least. I just think that this is an impossible situation for basically anybody.”

Linda Yaccarino is a ‘force’

Given Ms Yaccarino’s advertising background, it seems almost certain that Mr Musk is keen to increase Twitter’s advertising revenue.

Former head of ad sales at the Fox Networks Group, Joe Marchese, described her as a “force” to The New York Times.

Also speaking to the NYT was one of Ms Yaccarino’s friends and ad executive, Lou Paskalis. He questioned the decision. 

“With her stature in the industry as probably one of the most beloved and trusted people on the revenue side, I question why she would subject herself to that kind of potential reputational risk,” he said.

However, Mr Paskalis also told AP he was confident Twitter’s “trajectory will immediately take a 180-degree turn” under Ms Yaccarino’s leadership.

-with AP and Reuters