Katherine Maher

Katherine Maher is the President and CEO of National Public Radio. She's an experienced executive leading public interest institutions through technological disruption and strategic transformation, recently in areas of information and media, good governance and democracy, civil and human rights, international development and foreign policy.

Prior to joining NPR, Maher was CEO of Web Summit and served on its Board of Directors. She also worked for five years as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, responsible for the success of Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular digital platforms. She led Wikipedia to its highest brand trust since its founding, navigating the misinformation crisis and global trust decline in media, while doubling the Foundation's fundraising and raising Wikimedia's first endowment. Before Wikimedia, Maher worked on rights, democracy, and innovation at Access Now, the World Bank, the National Democratic Institute, and UNICEF.

Maher is the chair of the Board of Signal Foundation, responsible for the secure, private Signal Messenger app, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council for democracy and technology, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a security fellow at the Truman National Security Project; and from 2022 to 2024 served as an advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State's Foreign Affairs Policy Board regarding issues of technology, governance and human rights. She serves on the boards of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Reports, Adventure Scientists, and the Digital Public Library of America. She is also a trustee of the American University of Beirut.

She graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies after studying at the Arabic Language Institute of the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and the French Institute of Arab Studies in Damascus, Syria.