KQED Executive Action
• After 28 years with KQED/San Francisco, VP/GM Jo Anne Wallace announced her retirement, effective in late November. Wallace’s lengthy radio career started back in 1969 as a volunteer at WYSO, a tiny experimental radio station at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH. In 1973 was named manager of the station, making her one of the first four women station managers in public radio at the time. From there Wallace left to briefly manage KPFA/Berkeley, the first listener-supported station in the country, and from 1978 to 1980, she was Program Manager of WGBH Radio/Boston.
“Jo Anne Wallace is one of the superstars of public radio and we are so fortunate that she dedicated 28 years of her career to KQED,” said John Boland, KQED President & CEO. “She built the most successful public radio station in the nation and the people of the Bay Area have been the beneficiaries. She has also been a generous and collaborative colleague to everyone at KQED and she will be missed.”
• Concurrent with the news of Wallace’s impending retirement, KQED announced two internal promotions and a new hire, starting with Holly Kernan (left), who has been upped to Chief Content Officer. Kernan joined KQED in 2014 and was most recently Executive Editor, News.
Ethan Lindsey (center) has been promoted to Executive Editor, News. Lindsey was elevated from the Managing Editor for News, a position he has held since the summer of 2016. In his enhanced role, Lindsey will take over the big-picture focus of KQED News and will join the KQED’s Senior Content Team.
Jonathan Blakley (right) has been hired as KQED’s Executive Director of Radio Programming. Blakley arrives from Minnesota Public Radio, where he has served as Program Director since 2014. Kernan remarked, “We are thrilled to have Jonathan join our senior content team. He has so much talent and energy. KQED is fortunate that he wants to help us continue to grow our audiences and our public service ambitions.” Blakley previously spent 13 years with NPR as a Sr. Producer and Editor, including a stint in the Baghdad bureau. He has also worked at the AP, CBS Radio, WWJ/Detroit and ABC Radio News. Blakley was a Nieman fellow at Harvard and a Fulbright scholar.
