David Kenny is Executive Chairman of the Board at Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Nielsen from December 2018 to September 2023 and was the chief architect of the company’s transformation to a digital future. He also led the company through the two most significant transactions in its 100 year history – the sale of its consumer data unit, NielsenIQ, in early 2021 and the sale of Nielsen to a private equity consortium led by Evergreen Coast Capital Corp., an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management, and Brookfield Business Partners L.P. in October 2022. 

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.

Prior to joining Nielsen, David served as Senior Vice President of Cognitive Solutions at IBM. There, he led 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. Earlier in his career, David 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 he is Chairman of the Board for 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.