Susan Goldberg

President and Chief Executive Officer, GBH

Susan Goldberg is President and CEO of GBH, America’s preeminent public media organization, the largest producer of PBS content for television and the web, and a major supplier of content for NPR and digital audio services. She is the first woman to serve in this role since GBH was founded in 1951.

A nationally recognized journalist and leader, Goldberg has transformed media organizations, taking brands from reverence to relevance by diversifying staff, expanding coverage and executing multi-platform transformation.

Goldberg was named Editor in Chief of National Geographic in 2014 and Editorial Director of National Geographic Partners in 2015. As Editorial Director, she led all journalism across platforms, including digital journalism, magazines, podcasts, maps, newsletters and social media. Under her leadership, National Geographic has been honored with 11 National Magazine Awards, including four awards in 2020 and the top prize for General Excellence in 2019. In addition, National Geographic was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2021, Feature Photography in 2019, and for Explanatory Reporting in 2017. Goldberg also has led reporting that was honored with multiple local, state and national awards, including the Pulitzer Prize at the San Jose Mercury News (1990/Breaking News), and four finalists for the Pulitzer at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer (2008/Commentary; 2009/Feature Writing and Commentary; 2010/Commentary). She left National Geographic in early 2022.

Goldberg joined GBH in December 2022 from Arizona State University, where she served as a vice dean and professor of practice at Arizona State University, with a joint appointment to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the College of Global Futures.

Goldberg was executive editor for federal, state and local government coverage for Bloomberg News in Washington from 2010 to 2014. From 2007 to 2010, she was editor of The Plain Dealer. Prior to that, from 2003-2007, she was the executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News and served as the paper’s managing editor from 1999-2003. From 1989 to 1999, Goldberg worked at USA Today, including stints as a deputy managing editor of the News, Life and Enterprise sections. Previously, she worked as a reporter and editor at the Detroit Free Press. She began her career as a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A Michigan native, Goldberg has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University, where she now funds the Susan Goldberg Scholarship at the university’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences’ School of Journalism.

In addition to awards for journalism, Goldberg has been recognized repeatedly for leadership. In 2013, 2017 and 2021, she was voted one of Washington’s “most powerful women” by Washingtonian magazine. In March 2015, Goldberg received the Exceptional Woman in Publishing Award from Exceptional Women in Publishing. In 2020, InStyle magazine included Goldberg on its “Badass 50” list, naming her as No. 7 in its issue about “women who are changing the world;” she was selected as one of Folio’s Top Women in Media for having an “exceptional impact” on the direction of the industry; and she was recognized by the International Women’s Media Foundation as the Leadership Honoree for her work in uplifting women journalists and telling under-reported stories. She is a six-time juror for the esteemed Pulitzer Prize, a board member of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and President of the Board of the National Women in the Arts.

Goldberg lives in Boston. She is married to Geoffrey Etnire, a real estate lawyer; they have one grown son.