David Kenny To Join Nielsen As CEO

The Board of Directors of Nielsen Holdings plc today announced that David Kenny will join the company as Chief Executive Officer effective December 3, 2018. David will also join Nielsen's Board of Directors. David joins Nielsen from IBM, where he led IBM's Cognitive Solutions business.

"The Board is delighted to announce David's appointment," said James Attwood, Executive Chairman of Nielsen. "His decades of experience in Big Data, artificial intelligence, cloud technologies, and media make him perfectly suited to lead Nielsen at this critical time. Having spent a substantial portion of his career working in the advertising world, he has a deep and holistic understanding of advertisers and how best to serve them, and he has a proven track record of implementing growth strategies, overseeing strategic transactions and creating value for stakeholders. His multi-disciplinary background and history of success make him a great fit for this position. The Board looks forward to David's participation in the ongoing strategic review as we work to enhance shareholder value."

David Kenny

"Nielsen is uniquely placed at the intersection of marketing data and technology. In today's era of fast moving, ever changing consumers and markets, it is this combination that drives businesses forward," explained Kenny. "I'm thrilled to join this industry-leading company at this point in time, when so much is possible."

Most recently, Kenny served as Senior Vice President of Cognitive Solutions at IBM, where he led IBM's AI platform and portfolio. He was also responsible for developing IBM Watson and their cloud platform. Previously, Kenny was Chairman and Chief Executive of The Weather Company, joining IBM after their acquisition of The Weather Company's Product and Technology Business. He previously was President of cloud service provider Akamai and served as Co-Managing Partner at Publicis' VivaKi. He also co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of digital marketing agency Digitas continuing to lead the company after overseeing its sale to Publicis.

The Wall Street Journal reports people inside Nielsen said Mr. Kenny was chosen for his understanding of advertisers and his experience in artificial intelligence, big data and cloud technologies. Mr. Kenny has strong relationships with brands and media and technology companies, which he honed during his many years as a top executive at advertising giant Publicis Groupe SA .

Mr. Kenny also has connections to many private-equity companies, which may come in handy because such firms have expressed interest in Nielsen.

“Right now, I work for the public shareholders; if the best way to serve them is to go private, I don’t have any issues with that,” Kenny said. “I am very comfortable in either world.”

Nielsen was taken private in 2006 by several buyout firms and went public again in 2011.

Kenny said he would work to speed up the pace of the strategic review. “I have done this before, and I know the players,” he added.

Before IBM , Mr. Kenny was CEO of the Weather Co., a weather-forecasting and information-technology company. Mr. Kenny sold the digital and data assets of Weather Co. to IBM in 2015.