Head of NYTimes.com jumping to NPR as CEO
Vivian Schiller, the head of NYTimes.com’s digital efforts, has left the company. Where do you go after you’ve headed up the largest newspaper Web site on the Internet? She’ll be the new CEO of National Public Radio, succeeding Dennis Haarsager, who served as interim CEO since March.
At NYT, Schiller served as senior vice president and general manager, leading the day-to-day operations of NYTimes.com and overseeing product, technology, marketing, classifieds, strategic planning and business development. Before the Times, Schiller was SVP and GM of the Discovery Times Channel (a joint venture of NYT and Discovery at the time). Between the two gigs, she was at The New York Times for seven years. She started her career as a simultaneous Russian interpreter in the former Soviet Union.
One of her reasons for jumping ship? She believes that NPR is well poised to figure out how to go hyper-local in a big way, since NPR already has the local stations and the listener’s trust.
Schiller will start at NPR on January 5. A successor for her at The New York Times hasn’t been named yet.
Gawker has Schiller’s goodbye e-mail: http://gawker.com/5083169/nytimescom-chief-leaving-to-head-npr
PaidContent.org has NPR’s welcome e-mail:
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-breaking-vivian-schiller-leaves-nyt-joins-npr-as-new-ceo/
Also: Kinsey Wilson, the executive editor of USA Today and previously the editor of USAToday.com, has left the paper and also joined NPR as its digital head.
