NBC News has found the next anchor of its flagship evening newscast, NBC Nightly News.

The network says that Tom Llamas will step into the role later this summer. Llamas succeeds Lester Holt, who announced his plan to step down from the show last month. Holt is moving to a full-time role at the primetime newsmagazine Dateline.

NBC News executive VP Janelle Rodriguez announced Llamas promotion to staff Wednesday. Notably, in addition to anchoring the evening newscast, Llamas will also continue host his NBC News Now streaming show Top Story. Anchoring NBC Nightly News is a profound honor and one that carries tremendous responsibility. I look forward to working with the world class journalists at Nightly News and Top Story to bring viewers the most important stories every night, says Llamas. Lester Holt is a great man and one of the most trusted broadcasters of our time. Just like Lester, I promise to be devoted to our viewers and dedicated to the truth.

A former NBC production assistant and campaign embed, Llamas rose through the ranks at ABC News, becoming chief national correspondent and anchor of the weekend edition of World News Tonight. He re-joined NBC in 2021 as a senior national correspondent and streaming anchor, while also filling in on Nightly and the Today show.

With 25 years in journalism, Tom has built his career from the ground upstarting as an intern at a local Telemundo station and then with NBC News, before working overnights as a production assistant, Rodriguez wrote in a memo to staff Wednesday. He gained field experience as a campaign embed, honed his reporting skills as a local journalist at WTVJ and WNBC, and later became the weekend anchor of ABC World News Tonight and a regular fill-in anchor during the week. His seasoned backgroundboth in the field and at the deskuniquely positions him to carry forward the legacy of Nightly News.

Llamas has long been seen as an internal favorite to succeed Holt ever since re-joining NBC. He is also one of only a handful of Latino news anchors on a network broadcast.