Overview
Nina Link is a transformational CEO and board director. She brings 30 years of leadership experience navigating industry disruption, re-engineering legacy organizations, and advising early stage entrepreneurial companies to achieve financial, strategic, and operational success. At The ExCo Group, she has mentored senior executives in the engineering, retail, oil and energy, professional services and banking industries.
Career History
In addition to her work at The ExCo Group, Link has served on the boards of the Ad Council, New York University’s Center for Publishing, and International Federation of Periodical Press (FIPP).
Throughout her career, Link has brought her unique blend of entrepreneurship and business acumen working and partnering with companies in the media, business consulting, supply chain, data analysis, engineering and private equity industries.
Most recently, Link served as president and CEO of MPA – The Association of Magazine Media (formerly Magazine Publishers of America) and held the role for 13 years, longer than anyone in the organization’s history. During her tenure, she led the organization’s efforts to promote the vitality of the magazine industry to the advertising, marketing, and financial communities, as well as the press and the public. Her track record of success was leading through a period of significant change including the dot-com bust and recession of the early 2000s, the transformational shift to electronic media, board member turnover, along with rebranding and repositioning MPA. In addition, she oversaw the creation of the first e-reading conference for magazines (two weeks before the original iPad went on sale) as well as the industry’s first awards program honoring excellence on digital platforms.
Link enjoyed more than 20 years as a senior executive with Sesame Workshop (formerly Children’s Television Workshop) where she advanced from editorial director of two magazines to Group President, Publishing and Interactive Software, responsible for the leadership of the magazine, book, database, interactive software, school and internet divisions. She diversified the interactive business into new electronic formats to include video games, hybrid toys and hand-held electronics, and led numerous licensing agreements. In addition, she created the digital strategic business plan and oversaw the launch of the family Internet site: ctw.org.
Personal
Link is the recipient of two national magazine awards and the “Bpeace Women Forward Mentor of Distinction Award.” She is married with four grown children.