Kenny Named Nielsen’s New CEO

• The Board of Directors of Nielsen Holdings plc announced David Kenny is joining the company as Chief Executive Officer, effective December 3. He will also join Nielsen’s Board of Directors. Kenny segues from IBM, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President of Cognitive Solutions. Kenny succeeds Mitch Barns, who, as was previously announced, is retiring from the company on December 31 after 22 years.

“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.”

In his most recent role as SVP of Cognitive Solutions at IBM, Kenny lead the company’s AI platform and portfolio and was also responsible for developing IBM Watson and their cloud platform. Kenny was previously Chairman and Chief Executive of The Weather Company, President of cloud service provider Akamai and Co-Managing Partner at Publicis’ VivaKi. He also co-founded and served as Chairman & CEO of digital marketing agency Digitas and was a Partner at Bain & Company.

Commenting on his newest challenge, Kenny said, “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. I’m thrilled to join this industry-leading company at this point in time, when so much is possible.”