NPR's chief executive, Jarl Mohn, announced Tuesday he would step aside next June at the end of his five-year term to focus on a newly created position to lead the public radio network's fundraising drive ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2020.
Mohn announced that he and his wife Pamela would also contribute $10 million from their personal fortune toward the effort.
"I've had a chance to work at some great companies. But this has been the most important and rewarding thing I've done in my career," Mohn said in a telephone interview. "It really has been remarkable."
In taking the CEO job, Mohn arrived with decades of experience as a broadcast executive and digital media investor, with stints at MTV, VH1, E! and Liberty Media before becoming a private investor. He has been a relentless cheerleader of the durability of terrestrial broadcasting as a platform for public radio, and his tenure has been marked by significant growth in NPR's radio and digital audiences, though it has softened of late. That growth has been accompanied by notable financial gains.
The Mohn years at NPR have also been marred by a crisis sparked by sexual harassment allegations against NPR's former top news editor, Michael Oreskes. Some staffers said Mohn and his management team failed to register warning signs with sufficient speed in ways that allowed a toxic work environment to fester under Oreskes, whom Mohn hired in the spring of 2015 and fired in November 2017. NPR has subsequently put in place a series of far-reaching reforms to address workplace concerns.
"I've done a lot of soul-searching because of what happened," Mohn said Monday in the interview. "My last big screw-up of a hire was 31 years before that. The organization is the better for it now. We've learned from it. But I wish it had never happened."
The workplace changes have been led by NPR's chief operating officer, Loren Mayor. She is seen by many managers and executives inside NPR as a strong potential internal candidate to replace Mohn.
