Jeannie Ericson named Public Media Infrastructure CEO

Jeannie Ericson has been named CEO of Public Media Infrastructure, the organization announced Wednesday. 

She begins in the role Monday. Bob Kempf had served as PMI’s interim CEO.

Ericson joins PMI from the Public Media Venture Group, where she has been a strategic consultant. Her public media experience also includes leading the Integrated Media Association, an organization that brought together people in public media working on digital technologies. She also has corporate leadership experience, most recently as associate partner at McKinsey & Co.

LaFontaine Oliver, chair of the PMI board, said in a press release that Ericson is the “visionary, collaborative leader this moment demands.”

“We’re confident Jeannie is the right leader to help us steward this critical investment and build the shared infrastructure stations need to serve current and future audiences,” Oliver said in a letter to stations.

Kempf plans to stay on to help transition Ericson into her role, Oliver told stations.

“Public media has long been a model of what’s possible when organizations work together in service to the public,” Ericson said in the release. “This moment represents an extraordinary opportunity to build on that tradition by helping stations collaborate in new ways, share resources more efficiently, and create the tools necessary to meet the needs of current and future audiences. Local stations are the heartbeat of public media, and I’m honored to lead PMI as we work alongside them to forge a stronger, more resilient future.”   

“One of the necessary pieces for a stronger future is an entity that provides not just infrastructure, but guidance, a testing ground, and a genuine community for the people doing locally focused digital innovation,” she wrote in a letter to stations. “That’s the role I hope PMI can fill.”

CPB announced a grant to PMI last year for public radio distribution. The organization was founded by American Public Media Group, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, New York Public Radio, PRX and the Station Resource Group.

NPR, which has managed the Public Radio Satellite System since 1979, disputed the grant in court. The two sides eventually agreed to a settlement under which both PMI and NPR received distribution funding from CPB.