Global Leadership
Leadership
Nielsen’s global leadership team includes diverse leaders focused on empowering the media industry with independent data and insights that represent all audiences.
David Kenny
Chief Executive Officer
David Kenny was appointed Chief Executive Officer at Nielsen in November 2018.
David has spent his career in data science and artificial intelligence, especially focused on the marketing and media industries. He has a deep and holistic understanding of media and advertisers and how best to serve them, and has been a long time Nielsen customer and partner. David has a proven track record of implementing growth strategies, overseeing strategic transactions and creating value for stakeholders.
Most recently, David served as Senior Vice President of Cognitive Solutions at IBM. There, he oversaw IBM’s artificial intelligence initiatives, using machine learning to support enterprise customers across a large number of verticals, including healthcare, financial services, retail, and media. Prior to that, he was Chairman and Chief Executive of The Weather Company, which was acquired by IBM.
He served as President of Akamai, a cloud platform technology company; membre de directoire de Publicis Groupe; and co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Digitas, Inc.
Currently, David serves on the Board of Directors for Best Buy and Teach for America. He is also on the advisory board of ANA’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing.
David received his bachelor’s degree in industrial administration from the GM Institute (now Kettering University) and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Peter Bradbury
Chief Commercial Officer, U.S.
Peter Bradbury is Nielsen’s Chief Commercial Officer in the U.S. In this role, he has overall responsibility for building and accelerating Nielsen’s growth through partnerships across Nielsen’s range of solutions including Audience Measurement, Impact, Sports and Gracenote content measurement. His role also includes Nielsen’s advertiser and media agency teams, as well as media analytics.
Peter’s career with Nielsen spans 26 years. His deep industry knowledge and growth mindset have led Nielsen through transformation, including the current evolution to Nielsen ONE, the firm’s cross-media measurement solution. In the past, he led the company’s commercial efforts across national television, radio, digital, local TV and social media, as well as Gracenote metadata, Nielsen Sports and gaming.
Peter serves on the Executive Board of Directors of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), and the Center for Communication. He also serves on Nielsen’s Diversity and Inclusion Council.
Peter has a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from Bentley University.
George D. Callard
Chief Legal and Corporate Affairs Officer
George Callard is Nielsen’s Chief Legal and Corporate Affairs Officer. He joined Nielsen in January 2019 and is responsible for leading the legal and corporate affairs organization, which includes all legal affairs, including litigation, intellectual property, transactions, compliance and integrity, corporate secretary, security and cybersecurity and enterprise risk management.
George has 30 years of extensive experience covering a broad range of operational and legal responsibilities. He joined Nielsen from Weather Group, where he was the President, responsible for the operation and management of the company. He also served as Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel where he was responsible for legal, regulatory and compliance matters, as well as all central functions such as HR, finance and tax.
Prior to Weather Group, George served as Vice President of business and legal affairs at NBCU, responsible for all legal matters affecting delivery and distribution of NBCU content. This included serving as lead counsel for Olympics, Bravo, Oxygen, and NBC Network retransmission consent.
Previously, he had two tenures with AT&T (Ameritech & SBC) as lead video lawyer for Ameritech’s Americast and AT&T’s U-verse services. Earlier in his career, he served as senior counsel at the law firm Cinnamon Mueller and associate counsel for Multimedia Cablevision and Multimedia Broadcasting.
George received his JD from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, has a master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati and a bachelor’s degree from Union College.
Sean Cohan
Chief Growth Officer and President, International
Sean Cohan is Nielsen’s Chief Growth Officer and President, International since March 2020. He is responsible for overseeing Nielsen’s strategy, partnerships, corporate development, and its range of growth businesses outside the U.S., including Measurement, Impact, Sports and Gracenote.
Cohan has spent decades in the media ecosystem, including 15 years at A+E Networks, where he served most recently as President, International and Digital Media. He has also held positions at Primedia, Morgan Stanley, NBC, and A.T. Kearney. He brings extensive strategic, financial, operational and growth experience to Nielsen, along with a track record of transforming businesses, brands, teams, relationships and culture.
Cohan serves as a Board Director of H&R Block (NYSE: HRB), the Banff World Media Festival, and National Association of Television Programming Executives. He is also Co-President and Trustee of the Parrish Art Museum and Treasurer and Trustee at the Opportunity Network, which helps develop underrepresented high school students on their paths to college and career. Finally, he is Vice Chair on a committee of UJA of NY.
Sean received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard and a master’s from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Laurie Lovett
Chief People Officer
Laurie Lovett is Nielsen’s Chief People Officer. She joined Nielsen in January 2020 and is responsible for Nielsen’s talent and culture strategy, which drives a growth culture, innovation and the Nielsen employee experience.
Laurie brings decades of deep and varied human resources experience and a consistent record of achievement in high growth, premier, multi-billion-dollar global companies. She is known for building world-class “employer of choice” programs, championing diversity, equity & inclusion, and effectively managing initiatives for organization design, talent, and HR operations. Her effectiveness comes from a capacity to identify and analyze business challenges and produce innovative strategic and operational solutions in performance, measurement and service quality.
Previously, Laurie spent over 20 years in various global leadership roles at Accenture and Verisk Analytics as the Global Chief Human Resources Officer where for nearly four years she led the full scope of talent, leadership, HR, diversity and culture.
Laurie is also the Executive Director of Governance for the Nielsen Foundation, and is the executive sponsor of Nielsen’s ADEPT (Abled and Disabled Employees Partnering Together) BRG.
Laurie has a bachelor of science in business administration and management from Syracuse University and a masters in industrial and organizational psychology from Stevens Institute of Technology.
Jamie Moldafsky
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
Jamie Moldafsky is Nielsen’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. She joined Nielsen in November 2020 and is responsible for all of Nielsen’s product and brand marketing and communications.
Jamie is a seasoned marketing and communications executive with deep expertise, which she has gained over 30 years across a range of industries. Before Nielsen, Jamie was the CMO at Wells Fargo for 9 years during which time she also served as an internal thought leader for and sponsor of diversity and inclusion and the WF Foundation.
Prior to Wells Fargo, Jamie held various senior leadership and general management roles at Whirlpool Corp., Charles Schwab and American Express. These roles spanned domestic and global, marketing and communications and included full P&L responsibility (as VP and General Manager of KitchenAid).
Jamie has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Michigan, where she graduated Cum Laude, and an MBA from The Wharton School. She is a board member for the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco and on the executive committee for No Barriers USA, which helps people break through personal challenges and live a driven, purposeful life. She also chairs the advisory board of Wharton Customer Analytics and is a member of the board of Executive Education for Wharton.
She resides in San Francisco, California, with her husband and two children.
Karthik Rao
Chief Operating Officer
Karthik Rao is Nielsen’s Chief Operating Officer, responsible for driving a global product-driven technology transformation. He was appointed to this role in February 2020.
During his time at Nielsen, Karthik has held a variety of leadership roles spanning the U.S., Middle East and Asia for Nielsen’s Connect and Media businesses. Most recently, Karthik was the Chief Product & Technology Officer for Nielsen Global Media where he led the International Media product and technology teams.
Previously Karthik was the CEO of Nielsen Portfolio, where he led the fully independent division, comprising Nielsen Entertainment, Nielsen Gracenote, Nielsen Brandbank and Nielsen Telecom businesses across all global markets. He led Gracenote during its acquisition and integration by Nielsen, which included building Gracenote’s management team, aligning its strategy, and driving growth across key markets and segments. Prior to Gracenote, he served as President, Expanded Verticals, and led the teams serving our advertiser and agency clients. Earlier in his career, Karthik was Executive Vice President of Digital Enablement, where he oversaw a global transformation program. He also led Nielsen’s Media Analytics business, which delivers deep analytical insights that help media companies with their ad sales and programming activities.
As head of Nielsen China, Karthik oversaw the company’s initiatives towards China becoming one of the company’s fastest growing markets for Nielsen. Karthik began his career as an account executive at Ogilvy & Mather in India.
Currently, Karthik serves on the Board of Directors for Blucora. He has previously served on the boards of NCSolutions and OpenSlate.
Karthik has a passion for talent development and serves as Nielsen’s co-Executive Sponsor for the Asian Affinity Link (AAL) internal employee resource group. He holds a degree in Economics from Loyola University in Chennai and an MBA from Illinois State University.
Sandra Sims-Williams
Chief Diversity Officer
Sandra Sims-Williams joined Nielsen in 2020 and currently serves as Chief Diversity Officer. In this role, Sandra leads Nielsen’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) strategy and team.
Sandra is a transformational leader with over 30 years of experience linking DE&I strategies with corporate initiatives. With a background in counseling and talent management, coupled with a passion for talent engagement and fairness, Sandra has always seen a career championing diversity, equity and inclusion as a natural fit. Prior to joining Nielsen, Sandra spent 14 years working for a variety of Publicis Groupe agencies where she ultimately made history by becoming Publicis Groupe’s very first Chief Diversity Officer.
As Chief Diversity Officer of Nielsen, Sandra advocates for the success of all talent while overseeing and championing inclusive and equitable practices, the acquisition of diverse talent, the activation of diverse leadership development programs, the support of a global business resource group network, the furthering of our business diversity (supplier diversity) commitments, the pursuit of DE&I thought leadership and all with a sensitivity to making quantifiable impact. A firm believer in both qualitative and quantitative levers to help drive positive change, Sandra is a high touch leader who believes in and considers herself to be a “servant” leader.
Throughout her career, Sandra has been bestowed with many accolades and awards from across the advertising and media industries and the business community at large. Some of these include being named to the Black Enterprise Top Corporate Executives list, SAVOY Magazine’s Most Influential Women in Corporate America list with added recognitions from Adweek & ADCOLOR. Sandra is also a member of The Advertising Industry’s Diversity Steering Committee and serves on the boards of the Advertising Club of New York and ColorComm. In her spare time, Sandra has also founded Sandra’s Sister Circle which advocates for the advancement of young women of color.
Sandra holds a bachelor of arts degree from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and a master of arts degree from Hunter College in New York.
Linda Zukauckas
Chief Financial Officer
Linda Zukauckas is Nielsen’s Chief Financial Officer. She joined Nielsen in February 2020 and is responsible for the company’s financial strategy.
Linda brings deep finance and leadership experience to the CFO role. Prior to Nielsen, she was the EVP and Deputy CFO of American Express. In addition to that role, she held the positions of Chief Accounting Officer and Controller and was the executive sponsor of the company’s global women’s interest network. From 2019 through April 2021 Linda served on the Board of Directors of MTS Systems Corporation. From 2014 to 2019 she served on the Board of Directors of American Express Global Business Travel, a 50/50 JV.
Prior to American Express, Linda held various senior leadership roles at Ally Financial (formerly GMAC Inc), including Managing Director Corporate Strategy, where she had responsibility for M&A. Previously she was Chief Financial Officer of North America Auto Finance, Ally Financial’s largest business segment.
Currently, Linda serves on the Board of Directors for Zelis, a leading healthcare payments company.
Linda has a bachelor of business administration from Texas Tech University and is a past Chairman of the Board of Financial Executives International at the National level, and a past President of the New York City Chapter of Financial Executives International.