NPR Hires Nadine Zylstra, Former YouTube and Pinterest Exec, as Chief Content Officer

Nadine Zylstra is trading her Pinterest vision board to try to get her head around the future of public media.

The seasoned media exec most recently was Pinterest’s global head of programming and original content, and before that worked in top programming jobs at YouTube and Sesame Workshop. Zylstra will join NPR as chief content officer in July 2026, based out of its Culver City, California, offices.

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“This the job of a lifetime,” Zylstra told Variety in an interview. She said she loves her job at Pinterest and that “it had to be a super-special opportunity for me to leave.”

“I feel like I’ve been training for this job all my life,” she said. To Zylstra, heading NPR’s content teams presents the opportunity to serve the public with meaningful storytelling: “In terms of having a positive impact on the world — that’s literally what gets me out of bed in the morning.”

Zylstra joins NPR at a critical moment for public media. Last year, Donald Trump’s effort to defund NPR and PBS passed through Congress, with Republicans alleging their programming is “woke” and biased against conservatives. That eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars from their budgets. A federal judge ruled that Trump‘s executive order to end funding for PBS and NPR violated the First Amendment, because it represented “viewpoint discrimination and retaliation.” But for now it’s unlikely the U.S. government will restore funds to the public media orgs.

NPR has responded by rallying for listener donations. And in April, it announced gifts totaling $113 million ($80 million investment from philanthropist Connie Ballmer, wife of Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, and $33 million from an anonymous donor). Those funds are earmarked “to accelerate our digital innovation and strengthen the sustainability of the NPR network,” according to NPR CEO Katherine Maher.

“We are obviously cognizant of the downward pressure it’s put on our stations in terms of the loss of federal funds,” Maher said in an interview. She said NPR is committed to its mission of producing content in the public interest and expanding its reach in new digital formats. “The best way to engage our audience is to produce programming that creates joy and delight,” she said.

In NPR’s search for a chief content officer, Zylstra “immediately jumped off the page as somebody who understands what mission-driven media can do,” Maher said, citing the exec’s decade-plus tenure at Sesame Workshop, including serving as VP of production and programming for “Sesame Street.” The NPR CEO also was impressed with the work Zylstra has done in original programming at YouTube, where she was global head of originals and also led kids and learning originals. In addition, Zylstra currently serves on the board of PBS SoCal, which she joined in January 2024.

With Zylstra’s hire, “we’re interested in what the next generation of public media should look like,” Maher said.

NPR started out in linear broadcast, and it’s still “very strong” in the medium, Maher said. Now there’s an opportunity for the pubcaster to expand its digital footprint — including with video programming, Maher said, citing its recent “Wild Card” and “Newsmakers” video-first podcasts.

As NPR’s chief content officer, Zylstra will be responsible for the organization’s content strategy, leading an organization of more than 600 journalists and storytellers that include news, arts and cultural programming, podcasts and NPR Music (including the popular Tiny Desk Concerts series). She is tasked with “aligning NPR’s expansive content portfolio with future audience needs and distribution opportunities,” according to the public media org.

Zylstra takes over the role from Edith Chapin, formerly NPR’s editor in chief and interim chief content officer, who left the organization last fall. In September, NPR announced the hiring of Thomas Evans, a veteran CNN who formerly served as its London bureau chief, as editor in chief. Evans will report to Zylstra.

Zylstra joined Pinterest in July 2022. Before joining YouTube in 2015, she spent 11 years at Sesame Workshop in New York. Earlier in her career, she worked as a producer at VH1. Zylstra holds a bachelor’s degree in drama and dramatics/theatre arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in in Johannesburg, South Africa.

She said another major factor in deciding to take the NPR job was having met many of the journalists and producers at the public media company, and getting the chance to work with an “iconic collection of talent.” And Zylstra sees similarities between the culture at NPR and a place like YouTube: “It’s the same. It’s about serving an audience.”