NPR has named veteran media and technology executive Nadine Zylstra as its new Chief Content Officer, placing her in charge of the public broadcaster’s editorial and content strategy at a pivotal moment for the organization.
Zylstra will oversee more than 600 journalists, producers and storytellers across NPR’s news, podcast, arts, culture and music teams. She joins the organization from the social media platform Pinterest, where she served as the Global Head of Programming and Originals.
Katherine Maher, the President and Chief Executive Officer of NPR, said the organization sought a leader who could help expand its public service mission while adapting to changing audience habits and a more crowded media environment.
“To meet the evolving needs of our audiences, we knew we needed a visionary leader who understands both the responsibility of our public service mission and the dynamic strategies required to serve audiences in a crowded ecosystem,” Maher said in a statement.
Zylstra will be responsible for developing NPR’s overall content strategy, identifying new audience opportunities and expanding distribution across platforms. NPR said her work will include strengthening the reach of its journalism while growing its presence in culture, entertainment and music.
“I am honored to serve NPR as its new Chief Content Officer,” Zylstra said. “I feel like I have been in training for this role my whole career.”
At Pinterest, Zylstra oversaw programming and original content initiatives for a platform with more than 631 million monthly active users. Her work included the launch of Pinterest’s first linear streaming series, partnerships with high-profile public figures and content agreements with publishers including Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, Rolling Stone and Billboard.
Before joining Pinterest, Zylstra held senior roles at YouTube, where she served as Global Head of YouTube Originals and Head of Kids and Learning Originals. During her tenure, she oversaw more than 100 original series and helped expand educational programming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zylstra also spent more than a decade at Sesame Workshop, where she rose to Vice President and Supervising Producer of “Sesame Street.” In that role, she helped modernize the long-running children’s program while managing production teams across traditional and digital platforms.
Her appointment comes as NPR faces a period of financial and strategic pressure, including changes in audience behavior, increased competition from digital platforms, ongoing efforts to strengthen collaboration with member stations and the loss of a considerable amount of funding due to the closure of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Congress eliminated funding for the CPB last year.
