Jonathan C. Abbott
President and Chief Executive Officer
Jon Abbott is President and CEO of WGBH Boston and a leading advocate for public service media nationwide. He joined WGBH as Vice President and General Manager in 1998, became Executive Vice President and COO in 2004, and was named President and CEO in October 2007.
WGBH is a regional, national, and global public media powerhouse—creating award-winning documentaries and Web content in news and public affairs, science, history, arts and drama, children's programming, and more. WGBH is PBS’s single largest producer of content for television (prime-time and children’s programs) and the Web: Nova, Frontline, Masterpiece, American Experience, Arthur, Curious George, and Antiques Roadshow are just a few of its signature productions. WGBH also is a major supplier of broadcast and Web content for public radio listeners and a pioneer in both educational technologies for teachers and students and media access services for the 36 million Americans with hearing or vision loss.
Abbott oversees 11 public TV services and 3 public radio services serving southern New England.
Abbott has worked closely with PBS to extend public service media's reach, spearheading the launch of two national digital services: Create (a syndicated lifestyle channel co-created with WNET New York featuring many WGBH productions) and World (a syndicated non-fiction service co-created with WNET showcasing video, audio, documentaries, and commentary).
During his tenure as president, Abbott has expanded WGBH's new media and educational efforts and partnerships, from PBS LearningMedia (a free service for the nation's educators offering classroom-ready digital resources and lesson plans) to We Shall Remain, American Experience's ambitious multimedia and outreach project establishing Native history as an essential part of American history. These efforts build on Abbott's early and longstanding interest in mining the capabilities of broadband and online social networks to distribute public service media's distinctive content across an expanding array of digital devices— making it easier for the public as well as educators and students to access WGBH's rich library of programming and information when and where they choose.
Before coming to WGBH, Abbott served as Senior Vice President for Development and Corporate Relations at PBS (1992-1998). Prior to that, he spent five years in senior management with San Francisco public station KQED. A long-time jazz enthusiast, Abbott got his start in broadcasting in 1981 at Columbia University station WKCR-FM.
He serves on numerous public media boards, including the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), American Public Television (APT), American Documentary/P.O.V., and public television's Major Market Group. He is a board member of Arts Boston and Project Healthy Children and an Advisory Council Member for Harvard University's Master of Liberal Arts in Management Program.
Abbott holds a BA from Columbia University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Benjamin Godley
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Ben Godley manages WGBH's overall operations and ensures that editorial teams and supporting departments work effectively to realize the organization's goals. Godley joined WGBH in 2008 as Executive Vice President, overseeing the WGBH departments that manage the organization's finance, budgeting, development, administration, legal and business affairs, human resources, policy and planning, marketing and communications, and website as well as WGBH's media access efforts on behalf of the 36 million Americans with hearing or vision impairments. He was named COO in 2010.
Godley served in senior positions with Mitt Romney's presidential campaign after several years on the executive staff of the Massachusetts governor. Prior to his work in the political arena, he co-founded and was president and CEO of the award-winning agency CGN Marketing & Creative Services. He also has worked in marketing and management roles at IBM and at Hill and Knowlton and served on a number of local non-profit boards, including Big Brother Big Sister of Massachusetts Bay and the Massachusetts Children's Trust Fund.
David Bernstein
Vice President and General Manager for WGBH Enterprises
Co-President, PBS Distribution
David Bernstein directs WGBH's business activities, which include negotiation of partnerships with commercial and foreign co-producers; publishing; and licensing. David also is Co-President of PBSd, which is a separate entity wholly owned by PBS and WGBH. PBSd distributes PBS and WGBH programs to home video, foreign, and commercial markets. Prior to joining WGBH in 1992, Bernstein held positions as a senior consultant for Devonshire Consulting; Assistant Secretary of Administration and Finance and director of the Office of Management Information Systems for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; and Associate Commissioner of the Massachusetts Welfare Department.
Margaret Drain
Vice President for National Programming
Under Drain's leadership, WGBH has won multiple Primetime Emmys, News and Documentary Emmys, duPont-Columbia Awards, and George Foster Peabody Awards; additionally, WGBH national productions have received highest recognition at the Sundance Film Festival, the Berlin Festival, and prestigious film festivals around the world.
Drain began her career at WGBH with American Experience, having served as senior producer from 1987 and as executive producer beginning in 1997. Before moving to Boston, she was a producer at CBS in New York. She is a graduate of Columbia University School of Journalism and has a BA from Marquette University.
Jeanne M. Hopkins
Vice President, Communications and Government Relations
Jeanne Hopkins oversees institutional, community, and government relations for WGBH and is the liaison with WGBH's Community Advisory Board.
Hopkins joined WGBH in 1989 as Director of Media Relations. In 1991 she helped create WGBH's federal government relations initiatives, and later expanded local and community efforts. She was promoted to Vice President in 1994. She serves on the Boards of Brighton Main Streets, the Presentation School Foundation, and the Brighton Board of Trade.
Prior to joining WGBH, Hopkins spent 10 years in University Relations at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was press secretary to a former US Congressman.
Joseph M. Igoe
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Joe Igoe oversees WGBH's technology strategy and infrastructure, with responsibility for the organization's broadcast operations, engineering, IT, and production services. He joined WGBH in 2008 from Fox Networks Engineering and Operations, where he spent eight years in operations management and post-production technology planning, becoming Vice President, Post Production. Prior to that he held systems engineering positions with Disney/ABC and the Disney Channel and worked in system design and integration for National TeleConsultants. He began his career in educational television at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Igoe holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MBA from California State University, Northridge.
Susan L. Kantrowitz
Vice President and General Counsel
Sue Kantrowitz is responsible for all legal matters affecting the WGBH Educational Foundation, including all aspects of the production contracting process and the negotiation and administration of national collective bargaining agreements with actors, writers and musicians. She also oversees the WGBH Media Library and Archives.
Kantrowitz joined WGBH's legal department in 1981, becoming Director of Legal Affairs in 1984. She was named the station's first General Counsel in 1986. Kantrowitz came to WGBH from the public relations firm Bozell & Jacobs, where she was an account executive. Prior to that she was an associate producer at California station KOCE-TV.
Kantrowitz holds a JD from Boston College Law School and is a member of the American Bar Association, the Massachusetts Bar Association, and the Boston Bar Association.
Winifred Lenihan
Vice President for Development
A nationally respected development professional, Win Lenihan leads WGBH's major philanthropic fundraising, planned and high-level annual giving, and foundation development efforts as well as its board development activities and events management. Lenihan has played a strong hand in three WGBH capital campaigns, directing the last two, which set new marks for the organization. She began her development career in WGBH's membership office in the 1980s.
Vinay Mehra
Chief Financial Officer, Vice President for Finance and Administration
Vinay Mehra leads WGBH's financial administration and strategy, assuring that the organization's accounting, budget, and physical plant systems and operations support and enhance WGBH's educational mission. He joined WGBH in 2008 after more than 15 years in senior financial management roles as CFO and Vice President of Finance at both publicly traded and privately held companies, including a Boston-area franchise management company, the Pittsburgh-based media technology company Mediasite Inc., and the San Jose technology company Selectica. Mehra began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, serving clients in the media, technology, and service industries.
Lance W. Ozier
Vice President for Planning and Policy
Lance Ozier works with WGBH's President and Vice Presidents to advance the organization's strategic planning. He also works with PBS and other national public media organizations to address those policies and operations that affect WGBH's success as a national content producer. In addition, he serves as Clerk (corporate secretary), working with WGBH's Board of Trustees and Board of Overseers.
Ozier joined WGBH in 1990 as Director of National Underwriting, responsible for raising funds for national television and radio projects from national corporate and foundation sources. He was promoted to Vice President in 1998. Before joining WGBH, he was for six years the Vice President for Program Business Affairs at PBS's national headquarters. He began his public television career with the University of North Carolina television network in 1973. He served as Business Manager for WGBY 57 in Springfield, MA (a WGBH licensee) in 1977-78 and joined PBS in 1978, where he became Vice President in 1984.
Jamie Parker
Vice President for Marketing and Communications
Jamie Parker oversees the division that encompasses WGBH's corporate communications, local and national promotion and marketing, branding and visual communications, advertising and on-air promotion, and audience research. She joined WGBH in 2006 from Arnold Worldwide, where she was Senior Vice President of Brand Communications, developing differentiated messaging and exploring new communications platforms based on the agency's creative campaigns. Prior to Arnold, Parker was with Weber Shandwick Worldwide for 10 years, five as President of Weber Shandwick Cambridge and The Technology Practice.
Parker began her career at The Computer Museum, Boston, as Director of Exhibitions and Archives. She spent 12 years in communications at Digital Equipment Corporation before moving to the agency world.
Parker's commitment to nonprofit work has led her to serve as a consultant to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Museum of Science, the University of Massachusetts Boston, Hamilton College, and the Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care.
Russell J. Peotter
WGBH Vice President and General Manager for WGBY Springfield
Rus Peotter is responsible for the management of WGBY Springfield, the WGBH-affiliated public television station serving western Massachusetts, northern Connecticut and southern Vermont. He oversees all station functions including programming, production, development, engineering, and administration.
Peotter came to WGBY in 2001 from Maine Public Broadcasting, where he was in charge of the station's fundraising, promotion, outreach, and audience service efforts since 1992. He has served on numerous PBS national committees, helping senior PBS management develop policies and services in support of stations across the country.
Alexis Fife Rapo
Vice President for Broadband and Interactive Media
Alexis Fife Rapo joined WGBH in 2010 to lead digital product and service strategy, including examining new formats and platforms for WGBH content as the broadband and interactive consumer environment evolves. She works in close collaboration with WGBH content vice presidents, television and radio executive producers, and education directors, addressing the dynamic between consumer behavior and WGBH content and delivery opportunities. WGBH has been on the forefront of advancing public media's presence in the evolving digital landscape. As the first public broadcasting station to offer podcasts and vodcasts, and the first to rise to the No. 1 spot on iTunes, WGBH leads the way in embracing new-media opportunities and creating multiplatform distribution models.
Rapo came to WGBH from the Disney-ABC Television Group, where she was Vice President, ABC Digital Media, and led multiplatform strategy, product and online video and content development for ABC.com, home to Disney-ABC Television’s daytime, prime-time, and late-night programming. She won an Emmy Award for Interactive Television and Programming in 2006.
Marita Rivero
Vice President and General Manager for Radio and Television
Marita Rivero oversees the programming, marketing, and administration of WGBH's TV and radio stations. On the radio side, this includes 89.7 WGBH, Boston Public Radio (also heard on 89.7 HD1); Classical New England (heard on 99.5 in Boston and New Hampshire, 96.3 in Beacon Hill, 89.5 in Nantucket, 88.7 in Providence, and 89.7 HD2); and WGBH's Cape and Islands NPR station WCAI (heard on 90.1, 91.1, 94.3, and 89.7 HD3). All are available online as well. WGBH's television services include WGBH 2, WGBH 44, WGBH World, WGBH Create, 'GBH Kids, WGBH On Demand, and Boston Kids & Family TV. Rivero also oversees WGBH's national radio production activity and its local television production unit, Boston Media Productions.
Rivero was named manager of WGBH Radio in 1988. Award-winning radio productions developed under her leadership include the daily global news program The World (a collaboration with BBC World Service and PRI) and The Takeaway (a collaboration of WNYC and PRI, in collaboration with BBC World Service, New York Times Radio, and WGBH). She also served as Executive-in-Charge of WGBH's Peabody Award-winning multimedia project Africans in America. Rivero has developed the national Forum Network; new satellite radio services; and a substantial community partnership program with media, arts, and education partners.
Rivero began her broadcast career at WGBH in 1970 as a producer of public affairs television, including Say Brother (now Basic Black, one of the nation's oldest weekly series by, for, and about African Americans). She served as general manager of WPFW, Washington, DC's Pacifica radio station, from 1981 to 1988. Rivero has been honored with numerous awards for her achievements, among them, a 2007 Pinnacle Award for Achievement in Arts & Educationfrom the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce; the first Image Award for Vision and Excellence from Women in Film and Video/New England; the Living Legends Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Museum of African American History; and induction into the YWCA's Academy of Women Achievers. She serves on the NPR Board as Member Station Manager, and she is Chair of the National Black Programming Consortium Board.
Rivero holds a BS from Tufts University and has participated in post-graduate training at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and the Stanford and Wharton schools of business.
Brigid Sullivan
Vice President for Children's Media and Educational Programming
In the two decades that Sullivan led WGBH’s strategic planning efforts, the organization realized a sixfold increase in revenues from $30M to $180M and grew from 300 employees to more than 1,000.
Sullivan's achievements have earned her numerous honors, including the New England Silver Circle Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and induction in the YWCA Academy of Women Achievers. She holds an MBA from Harvard University and a BA from Thomas More College of Fordham University.
Fran Sullivan
Vice President for Human Resources
Fran Sullivan has more than 20 years of executive-level human resources experience as a Senior Vice President at various divisions of Fidelity Investments, as well as experience consulting to small and mid-sized companies. She joined WGBH in 2012 as Vice President for Human Resources to lead the organization in goal setting, performance evaluation, training, career advancement, mentoring, inclusion, and other areas critical to WGBH’s continued success.
Sullivan serves as a board and finance committee member for Girls’ LEAP, a local non-profit focused on empowering young women to value and champion their own safety and well being. She holds a Masters of Arts in Education, a Bachelor of Science in Communications, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, all from Syracuse University.
Suzanne Zellner
Vice President, Corporate Sponsorship
Suzanne Zellner oversees WGBH's national and regional corporate development activities, supervising the staff that secures sponsors for WGBH and handles marketing, client services, and sponsor research.
Zellner joined WGBH in 2003 to direct the Sponsorship Group for Public Television (SGPTV), which secures national corporate sponsors for signature PBS programs, including WGBH's own productions. She was promoted two years later to supervise a newly consolidated department that unifies WGBH's national sales, marketing, client services, and sponsor research operations with the regional sponsorship sales team for WGBH's TV and radio broadcasts, website, and events.
Zellner came to WGBH with more than 20 years of sales, account management, and product management at Ziff Communications and CMP Media. She also has CEO and COO experience at three Internet start-up companies. She is the founding executive director of MassWIT (Women, Insights, Technology), a professional women's networking organization.
