Katherine Maher



Katherine Roberts Maher (born April 18, 1983) is an American businesswoman. She is the chief executive officer (CEO) and president of National Public Radio (NPR) since March 2024. Prior to NPR, she was the CEO of Web Summit and chair of the board of directors at the Signal Foundation. She transitioned to the role of non-executive chairperson at Web Summit in March 2024. She is a former chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Maher worked for UNICEF, the National Democratic Institute, the World Bank and Access Now before joining the Wikimedia Foundation. She subsequently joined the Atlantic Council and the US Department of State's Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

Early life and education
Maher grew up in Wilton, Connecticut, and attended Wilton High School. Her father, Gordon Roberts Maher, worked in finance in New York City and witnessed the September 11 attacks. He died in 2020. Her mother, Ceci Maher, is a former non-profit executive who was elected to the Connecticut State Senate in 2022. Katherine has two younger brothers.

After high school, Maher graduated from the Arabic Language Institute's Arabic Language Intensive Program of The American University in Cairo in 2003, which she recalled as a formative experience that developed her interest in the Middle East. Maher subsequently studied at the Institut français d'études arabes de Damas in Syria and spent time in Lebanon and Tunisia.

In 2005, Maher received a bachelor's degree from New York University in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies.

Maher originally intended to be an academic and work for human rights and international development organizations.

Career
After internships at the Council on Foreign Relations and Eurasia Group, in 2004 and 2005, respectively, Maher began working at HSBC in London, Germany, and Canada as part of their international manager development program.

In 2007, Maher returned to New York City, where from 2007 to 2010, she worked at UNICEF as an innovation and communication officer. She worked to promote the use of technology to improve people's lives. She traveled extensively to work on issues related to maternal health, HIV/AIDS prevention, and youth participation in technology. One of her first projects at UNICEF involved testing MediaWiki extensions related to accessibility in Ethiopia.

From 2010 to 2011, Maher worked at the National Democratic Institute as an ICT program officer. From 2011 to 2013, Maher worked at the World Bank as an ICT innovation specialist and consulted on technology for international development and democratization, working on ICT for accountability and governance with a focus on the role of mobile phones and other technologies in facilitating civil society and institutional reform, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. She co-authored a chapter on "Making Government Mobile" for a World Bank publication entitled Information and Communications for Development 2012: Maximizing Mobile. In 2012, Maher's Twitter feed on issues related to the Middle East was noted for its coverage of the Arab Spring.

From 2013 to 2014, Maher was advocacy director at the Washington, D.C.-based Access Now. As part of this work, she focused on the impact on people of laws about cybersecurity, morality, and defamation of the state that increase state censorship and reduce dissent. Access was a signatory of the Declaration of Internet Freedom. Maher was chief communications officer of the Wikimedia Foundation from April 2014 to March 2016. She became interim executive director in March 2016 following the resignation of executive director Lila Tretikov and was appointed executive director on June 23, 2016; the position was subsequently retitled as "executive director and CEO".

Maher stepped down from her positions as CEO and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation on April 15, 2021. Maryana Iskander was appointed as her successor.

Maher states that she focuses on global digital inclusion as a way to improve and protect people's rights to information through technology. In a speech to the Atlantic Council Maher spoke about the challenge of combating disinformation, particularly around critical events like elections and the Covid pandemic. She described the First Amendment as a "number one challenge" in regulating content and fighting disinformation.

From 2022 to 2023, Maher was a member of the US State Department's Foreign Affairs Policy Board, an expert panel established in 2011 by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to advise US officials. As of 2023, she chairs the board of directors of the Signal Foundation. She is also the board chair of nonprofit organization, Adventure Scientists as of January 2023. In October that year, Web Summit appointed Maher as its new chief executive, to replace Paddy Cosgrave.

In January 2024, Maher was named CEO of NPR, and started her job in late March. She subsequently resigned from the Foreign Affairs Policy Board, but continued on the board of the Signal Foundation.

In April 2024, Uri Berliner, NPR senior business editor, published an essay in The Free Press critiquing, among other things, liberal bias at NPR both in management and content, leading to an erosion of trust with the public and with internal staff. Following Berliner's critique, conservative journalists and activists including Christopher Rufo criticized Maher for tweets she had made supporting progressive policies and about Donald Trump in 2018, as well as comments Maher made about the First Amendment as "the number one challenge" in the fight against disinformation in a 2021 interview. Berliner was suspended without pay for 5 days, ostensibly for failing to secure approval for "outside work". On April 17, he resigned after 25 years at NPR and criticized Maher's appointment as CEO. Maher defended NPR's record, and stated that her comments regarding the First Amendment were misrepresented and that she has a "robust belief in the First Amendment".

The United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce requested an appearance by Maher as part of their investigation into "allegations of political and ideological bias at the national program producing office of National Public Radio" as a taxpayer funded public radio organization. Maher declined due to a scheduling conflict, as she was previously scheduled to meet with NPR’s board all day on the same date as the committee's hearing.

In May 2024, Maher approved and announced a new editing group for NPR, called "the Backstop", which caused internal anxiety. Numerous employees worried that the additional layer of review, comprising six editors and funded by an unknown donor, was insufficiently transparent, may be redundant, and may impede NPR's journalistic process. There were also concerns that the creation of the Backstop could be interpreted as a defensive reaction to Mr. Berliner's essay.

Personal life
Maher married lawyer Ashutosh Upreti, a former lawyer for Lyft and Apple, in July 2023.

Honors

 * In 2013, The Diplomatic Courier named her as one of 99 leading foreign policy professionals under age 33.

Affiliations

 * American University of Beirut, Member of the Board
 * Council on Foreign Relations, Member
 * Sunlight Foundation, Member of the Board
 * 2011: Youth for Technology Foundation, Member of the Board
 * 2013: Truman National Security Project, Policy Fellow, National Security Fellow, and Research Fellow, Democracy & Human Rights Initiative
 * 2013: Open Technology Fund, Advisory Committee Member
 * 2016: World Economic Forum, Member, Global Network Council on the Future of Human Rights
 * 2019: World Economic Forum Young Global Leader
 * 2021: Atlantic Council Democracy & Tech Initiative, Senior Fellow
 * 2022: US State Department, member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board