PBS Foundation

About PBS Foundation

Paula Kerger

President & Chief Executive Officer, PBS
President & Founding Member, PBS Foundation Board of Directors (ex officio)

Paula A. Kerger is president and chief executive officer of PBS, the nation’s largest non-commercial media organization with 355 member stations throughout the nation.

Ms. Kerger joined PBS as its sixth president and chief executive in March 2006 after serving for more than a decade at Educational Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) ? the parent company of Thirteen/WNET and WLIW New York ? where her ultimate position was executive vice president and COO. Her tenure boasts many achievements, including WNET’s completion in 1997 of the largest successful endowment campaign ever undertaken by a public television station.

Since her arrival at PBS, Ms. Kerger’s commitment to high-quality content, education, diversity and the use of new technology to bring public media into the lives of all Americans has resulted in a broad range of initiatives. Among her accomplishments are Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s “The War,” which earned the highest rating of any PBS series in the last 10 years; the debut of such acclaimed children’s programs as “Curious George,” and “Super Why!,” both in the top 10 programs for children ages 2-5; new primetime science and arts series; and comprehensive online sites for parents and caregivers, PBS Parents, and educators, PBS Teachers. In the past year, PBS programs have been honored with ten News and Documentary Emmys, nine Primetime Emmys, eight George Foster Peabody awards, and one Academy Award, for best animated short film. Innovative partnerships with such companies as iTunes, Netflix, Amazon’s UnBox, Vuze, Hulu, and BitTorrent ensure that PBS programming is accessible across more than one platform and, increasingly, to a global audience.

In addition to leading PBS, Ms. Kerger is president of the PBS Foundation, an independent organization that raises private sector funding for PBS, and a director of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

In 2005, Ms. Kerger was named to the Women’s Forum, an organization of 300 leading women in New York’s arts and business scenes. In both 2006 and 2007, the Hollywood Reporter included Ms. Kerger in the “Women in Entertainment Power 100,” an annual survey of the nation’s top women executives in media. In 2008, she received the Woman of Achievement Award from Women in Development, New York.

Ms. Kerger received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Baltimore. She and her husband Joseph live in Washington, DC.