Nielsen Holdings plc has just announced two strategic hires to support its plan to create two separate publicly traded companies later in the year.
David Rawlinson, President of the Global Online Business at Grainger, will become the Chief Executive Officer of Nielsen’s Global Connect business. In addition, Linda Zukauckas will join the company as Chief Financial Officer. Both will join on February 3rd.
Currently a member of Nielsen’s Board of Directors, Rawlinson joins from W.W. Grainger, Inc., a leading broad line supplier of maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products serving businesses and institutions. He joined Grainger in 2012 and previously served as the Vice President of Operations for the Global Online Business, and prior to that, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Grainger. Previous to that he worked for ITT Corp. and in addition has served in appointed positions for the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations.
He will become the CEO of the newly created public company—currently referred to as Nielsen Global Connect which provides insights and marketplace information to consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers and was established in November last year when Nielsen announced plans to split into two independent publicly trade companies. The other division is Nielsen Global Media.
Zukauckas most recently served as Executive Vice President and Deputy Chief Financial Officer at American Express. She has held various senior leadership roles at Ally Financial (formerly GMAC Inc) and serves on the board of MTS Systems Corporation, where she is on the Audit and the Governance & Nominating committees. At the time of the separation, she will remain as CFO of the Global Media business.
“Both David and Linda bring a wealth of relevant and valuable experience to Nielsen. Both will have a great deal of impact on the current company and will have significant roles in the new companies moving forward. We are very excited that they have agreed to join us at this dynamic time for Nielsen’ said David Kenny, Chief Executive Officer for Nielsen.
