Npr CEO and leadership

Christopher Turpin is Chief of Staff at NPR. In this role, Turpin oversees NPR's Development division and activities, liaises with the News and Programming divisions and helps the CEO manage the operations of the executive team and critical projects.

Before his appointment to Chief of Staff, Turpin served as Vice President for Special Projects+Innovation at NPR. He was responsible for leveraging the NPR newsroom to tell stories in new, innovative and more impactful ways, and for elevating NPR's public service journalism in all its myriad forms across our newsroom and the NPR system.

Previously, he served as NPR's interim Senior Vice President for News and Editorial Director, overseeing NPR's newsroom and its operations. He moved into that role after serving as NPR's Vice President of News Programming and Operations, where he oversaw all news programs, newscasts, news operations, innovation in news storytelling and training, ensuring NPR's continued excellence across a range of journalistic skills.

Prior to that, Turpin was the Executive Producer of All Things Considered, NPR's afternoon newsmagazine. On a daily basis he guided the show's editorial direction and managed the show's production staff.

Arriving at NPR in January 2000, Turpin spent two years as All Things Considered's Supervising Senior Producer, responsible for the day-to-day running of the show. During his time at NPR, Turpin has contributed to All Things Considered's coverage of breaking news events such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Iraq War, and Hurricane Katrina. Along with these major stories, Turpin was part of the All Things Considered production team in Chengdu, China, covering the devastating earthquake there in 2008.

A native of England, Turpin started his broadcasting career volunteering at his local community and public radio station during graduate school. He then worked for Monitor Radio in Boston, Massachusetts, over the span of eight years, moving from production assistant to running the morning and evening newsmagazine programs.

Turpin has also been a senior manager and member of the executive committee at Internews, a non-profit organization that fosters independent media around the globe, especially in countries emerging from conflict. In this position, Turpin worked on projects in the Balkans, Central Asia, Indonesia, and Africa.

As a producer, Turpin has contributed to many reports and series that were awarded with the industry's top honors, including a 2003 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for NPR News coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks, a 2005 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for Radio Diaries' "Mandela: An Audio History," and a 2009 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for coverage on All Things Considered of the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province in China. Coverage of the earthquake in China also earned a 2008 George Foster Peabody Award for Turpin and the rest of the NPR staff reporting on this story.

Turpin earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from the University of Sussex in England. He first grew to love the United States during a year-long study abroad at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He has a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from Oxford University and a Master of Arts in English from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Deborah A. Cowan is Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer at NPR.

She is responsible for overseeing the organization's financial operations, including ensuring the integrity of accounting processes, internal controls, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, planning and analysis. In addition to providing effective leadership of the finance and accounting staff, she is responsible for ensuring financial awareness and understanding throughout the organization.

Cowan brings more than 20 years of financial leadership experience in media and business to her role at NPR. Just before joining NPR in 2010, Cowan served as the senior vice president of finance at Radio One, Inc. managing the financial and accounting operations. She was part of the senior leadership team that evolved the financial and operational structure and systems that helped grow the organization (through acquisitions as well as organically) and handled many complex strategic and financial issues.

During her time at Radio One, Cowan's accomplishments included formalizing the company's planning process; leading the company's initial and subsequent Sarbanes Oxley compliance; re-engineering several accounting processes; managing the integration of several radio stations, a radio syndication company and an online social networking company; overseeing company divestitures; installing several financial systems; and restructuring the company's finance and accounting organizations into a centralized unit.

Prior to joining Radio One in 2001, Cowan was a financial manager at IBM for 17 years where she held several increasingly responsible CFO positions for significant divisions. Before IBM, Cowan worked for Coopers & Lybrand, performing audits for large and medium-sized nonprofit and for-profit companies.

A certified public accountant, Cowan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Howard University and a Master of Business Administration in Finance and International Business from Columbia Business School. She is currently a director on the nonprofit boards of Consumer Reports and the National Education Association Foundation, where she chairs the audit committee and serves on the investment committee, and is a former director of the Media Financial Management organization.

Laura Soto-Barra is a NPR RAD Chief -- Research, Archives & Data Strategy at NPR and is based in Washington d.c. Metro Area. She has worked as Sr. Librarian at NPR, Assistant Managing Editor/Library at Syracuse Post Standard, and Chief Librarian at NPR. Laura studied at University of Toronto between 1982 and 1991 and University of Toronto between 1989 and 1991.

Experienced general counsel, corporate secretary and antitrust advisor. Skilled in strategic planning, negotiations, M&A, regulatory compliance and governance matters.