NPR Chooses Katherine Maher As CEO

Katherine Maher

NPR has announced the selection of former Wikimedia Foundation chief Katherine Maher to lead the network through an era of declining broadcast listenership, financial uncertainty and technological turbulence.

In an interview ahead of the announcement of her appointment, Maher said her experience at the foundation underscores the importance of NPR's mission to serve the public independently of commercial interest. "There is a strong alignment in both of those organizations around integrity and autonomy," Maher said.

Maher said she intends to build on the fierce loyalty instilled in many listeners for NPR's news programs and everything else. (She said she cringes at the word "content.")

And Maher said she will work to expand the pool of people who experience that deep attachment.

"It's about matching need and delight so people have a real desire to keep coming back, to engage with what it is that we offer," Maher said.

The appointment of Maher, 40, as NPR's 12th permanent chief executive and president represents an embrace of a generational shift, with firm roots in the digital age. She has sought to promote the free flow of information as a tool of expanding democracy in her work in tech and international affairs. She started her career in finance.

Maher has never worked directly in journalism or at a news organization. That stands in contrast to many of her predecessors at NPR, including current CEO John Lansing, and her freshly appointed counterparts at CNN and the Washington Post.

NPR board chair Jennifer Ferro, who led the search committee, said Maher offers visionary corporate leadership and proven fundraising strengths. And she cited Maher's ability to serve as a forceful ambassador for the network, including to the hundreds of public radio member stations and on their behalf.

In the interview, Maher said she was first exposed to NPR because her parents listened in the car – and it helped determine the course of her life.

She joined the Wikimedia Foundation's communications team in 2014 and became its CEO two years later. There, Maher built up a significant endowment — $140 million — to support Wikipedia's promise to "unlock the world's knowledge."