NPR has promoted Keith Woods to chief diversity officer, a newly created position.
Woods is currently VP of newsroom training and diversity. In his new role, he will report to CEO John Lansing.
Woods will “guide NPR’s push to expand the diversity of its audience work across NPR and help build a more diverse and inclusive organization,” NPR said in a press release Thursday.
“Given his decade of service to NPR, working to strengthen our newsroom and the public radio system, he is ideally suited for this role,” Lansing said in the release. “Keith will be a thought partner to me and the rest of the executive team, helping us set goals and craft a diversity plan that is responsive to — and accountable to — our staff and the public we serve.”
Woods will continue to lead NPR’s editorial training unit and will work on diversity efforts with Nancy Barnes, senior VP for news and editorial director; Programming & Audience Development SVP Anya Grundmann; and Chief Human Resources Officer Carrie Storer. His projects at NPR have included an effort to increase diversity among newsroom sources.
“I’m excited to work with John and my colleagues on these issues and truly focus NPR’s attention on bringing more of the public to public radio,” Woods said in the release. “We know it will mean hearing more voices from across the country, building and strengthening the diversity of our staff, and reaching out more deliberately in all that we do to embrace audiences who don’t yet know who we are or don’t yet believe that their stories are our stories.”