Vivian Schiller, chief digital officer for NBC News and former CEO of NPR, will join Twitter in January as head of the social media company’s news partnerships.
Schiller will lead Twitter’s news media team, which highlights “best practices and innovative uses of Twitter by journalists and newsrooms,” according to the description on the website.
Excited to join @Twitter as Head of News in January. Leaving @NBCNews at year's end. Grateful to my beloved colleagues for 2+ great years.
— Vivian Schiller (@vivian) October 24, 2013
Schiller joined NBC News in July 2011 in the newly created digital role, reporting to president Steve Capus (who left the Peacock earlier this year). She’s been in charge of digital strategy for both NBC News and MSNBC.
She resigned as president and CEO of NPR in March 2011, after the pubcaster was snared in a pair of political controversies on her watch. Prior to NPR, Schiller was senior VP and GM of The New York Times Co.’s NYTimes.com and before that launched and ran the Discovery Times Channel, a now-defunct joint venture of The Times and Discovery Communications.
Twitter has been on a hiring spree ahead of its IPO, expected sometime next month. The social firm had 2,300 employees at the end of the third quarter, after hiring 300 employees in the period, according to regulatory filings.
Twitter reported $168.6 million in revenue for the third quarter, more than twice the year-earlier period, but also disclosed a net loss of $64.6 million, its highest reported to date. Twitter’s monthly active user based climbed to an average of 231.7 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up 6% from 218.3 million the previous quarter.
