As Chief, Station and System Strategies, Kathy Merritt oversees a portfolio of grants and initiatives that strengthen public media stations’ ability to serve their local communities and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the public media system. It includes distribution of Community Service Grants (CSGs) to more than 500 station grantees across the country, Next Generation Warning System grants to help stations better protect Americans in emergency situations, and Collaborative Operations and Services grants that assist stations in leveraging their collective assets for more efficient service to the public.
Station and System Strategies also works to collect and analyze data to provide industry insights and inform CPB investments, identify and meet system needs through directed projects and grants, and advance public media's journalism and radio programming, locally, regionally, and nationally.
Prior to her current position, Ms. Merritt was Senior Vice President of Radio, Journalism and CSG Services. Before rejoining CPB in 2017, she was Vice President for Content Strategy and Development at Public Radio International, overseeing a portfolio of programs and podcasts. In her previous tenure at CPB, she was Senior Director of Program Investments in Radio, where she was one of the architects of numerous ground-breaking public media projects.
Before working at CPB, Ms. Merritt was the interim general manager at KBPS in Portland, Ore.; station manager and news director at WAMU in Washington, D.C.; and news director at WFAE in Charlotte, N.C. She has worked in production, editing, hosting and reporting and filed stories for many news programs, including NPR's “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” “Marketplace” and “The Osgood File” on CBS.
She attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for her BA in English and the University of Maryland for a Graduate Certificate in Multimedia Journalism. She was named a distinguished alumna of UNC Charlotte in 2023.