Measuring Man: Indian American Karthik Rao Promoted as CEO of TV Rating Company Nielsen
- A 23-year veteran of nearly every aspect of the company business, he was promoted to CEO of its audience measurement business at the end of last year as part of a larger reorganization.
Karthik Rao, a longtime product executive at Nielsen, has taken over as the new CEO, the TV measurement company announced earlier this month. A 23-year veteran of nearly every aspect of the company business, Rao has been at Nielsen for over two decades, mostly in product leadership roles, the company said in its announcement earlier this month. He was promoted to CEO of its audience measurement business at the end of last year as part of a larger reorganization. He replaces David Kenny, who is moving to an executive chairman role, the company announcement said.
According to the New York Post, “Rao’s rise to power at Nielsen came amid upheaval at the company in November 2019 when it split into two publicly-traded entities — one handling consumer research, and the other focusing on TV ratings.”
He was chief product and technology officer at Nielsen and was promoted to the lofty role of COO of the newly formed media company, now dubbed Nielsen Global Media. As CEO of Nielsen’s Audience Measurement business, Rao was “responsible for driving and evolving its audience measurement in the midst of unprecedented disruption and transition,” the company said. “His primary focus has been on enabling a currency across all media distribution and consumption models globally,” the announcement added. In a statement, he said, “Nielsen has been my home for most of my career, and I could not be more excited for this new opportunity.”
Axios noted that “the move comes amid broader controversies plaguing the longtime leader in TV ratings.” Nielsen was “taken private in 2022 by a buyout group led by Elliott Investment Management affiliate Evergreen Coast Capital and Brookfield Business Partners.” A week before Rao’s Sept. 14 appointment, “the company laid off 9% of its staff, roughly 1,000 employees, which followed another round of layoffs earlier this year. The company has faced a lot of pressure from measurement startups in the streaming era, most of which rely on big data to capture TV viewership rather than panels of a smaller subset of people that are then analyzed.
In 2021, Rao faced an “ethics probe over affair with company lawyer,” the New York Post reported, adding that the “internal probe was parked by an anonymous whistleblower.”
Rao previously served as CEO of Nielsen Portfolio, leading the fully independent division. Before that, he held various posts at Nielsen Global Media, including CEO and chief product and technology officer. He has held a variety of executive positions within the Nielsen Corporation, as well as president of Nielsen Portfolio and the CEO of Gracenote, an entertainment data and technology provider. He has also served as the president of Nielsen’s Expanded Verticals business and executive vice president of Nielsen’s Digital Enablement.
He serves on the Diversity Council at Nielsen as the Executive Sponsor of the Asian American Employee Resource Group. He has served as a board member for OpenSlate, a global source of brand safety and contextual analytics for digital video content, and as a member of the board for NCSolutions since 2019. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Economics from Loyola College, Chennai, India, and an MBA in marketing from Illinois State University.
In 2021, Rao faced an “ethics probe over affair with company lawyer,” the New York Post reported, adding that the “internal probe was parked by an anonymous whistleblower.” Nielsen hired outside lawyers in September to investigate Rao, who said he “didn’t violate the company’s code of conduct.” However, the alleged affair with the lawyer, who was also promoted at the time, had “raised eyebrows during an era of ‘Me Too’ corporate scrutiny,” the Post said. Sources told the Daily at the time that the investigation tried to find out if “Rao used his position to pave the way for the woman to get a promotion.”
It was ruled that “the affair didn’t present a conflict because Rao was not the woman’s direct supervisor.” Meanwhile, the attorney eventually broke up with Rao and left the company, sources told the Post. Nevertheless, “Nielsen’s code of conduct doesn’t require affairs to be disclosed, unlike some other public companies,” the Post added.