Atlanta Spotlight | Jennifer Dorian

By Staff Writer Atlanta Trend

• Jan 01, 2021

Public Broadcasting Atlanta (PBA) has announced Jennifer Dorian as the organization’s new president and CEO. Dorian, a 30-year veteran of the Atlanta business community, will lead both WABE (90.1 FM), Atlanta’s award-winning NPR station, and PBS station ATL PBA (30), starting in January. Wonya Lucas, who served as PBA CEO from 2015-2020, recently vacated the position to join Crown Media Family Networks as president and CEO. Scott Woelfel, who served PBA as Interim CEO throughout the search process, will continue in his role as Chief Content Officer.

Dorian joins PBA following a 20-year career with Turner Broadcasting and Warner Media, having served as Vice President of Branding for TNT, Chief Strategy Officer for Turner Entertainment Networks and most recently as General Manager of Turner Classic Movies. During her tenure at TCM, she developed and launched a TCM lifestyle business portfolio that grew fan engagement via events, travel, and partnerships that generated new revenue for the channel. In addition, she served as concurrent general manager for Filmstruck, Turner’s first direct-to-consumer streaming service. Prior to joining Turner, she held leadership positions at The Coca-Cola Company and Pizza Hut, Inc. Dorian is also an active voice in Atlanta’s not-for-profit community and currently serves as a director on the board of the Atlanta Beltline Partnership, The PATH Foundation, and The Atlanta Music Project. She is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta and holds her MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Andrew Feiler, Chair of the Board of Directors for PBA, said of the selection, “We are thrilled to welcome Jennifer to the PBA leadership position. Our Board’s search committee, in partnership with BoardWalk Consulting, conducted an exhaustive recruitment process that reached close to 300 candidates across the country. It became clear that Jennifer shares our vision for growth in our reach, revenues, and relevance and in ways that will further strengthen our news organization and innovate across all platforms to grow the size and diversity of our audience. Jennifer has great experience in leading a respected, commercial-free brand at TCM, along with multi-platform content distribution from TV to digital video to streaming services and podcasts. She understands the challenges that legacy media brands face in reaching audiences with shifting behaviors, lifestyles and demographics. But perhaps most importantly, her reputation as a compassionate leader with strong vision and track record for solid execution make her a great choice to lead our accomplished team into the next chapter.”

“I’m energized and honored to be joining the highly respected team at WABE and ATL PBA,” said Dorian. “I’m especially motivated to rally additional resources for our highly respected news organization and to pivot my playbook for innovation to the public media arena. I’m eager to serve the team by opening up an even deeper dialogue on diversity, equity and inclusion and to lead our stations as catalysts within metro-Atlanta to help address critical issues we face as a community.

Whether it is civic engagement, health and wellness, equitable development, or vibrant arts, our stations will become even more deeply committed to help advance progress on priority issues and accelerate support from businesses, donors and foundations,” Dorian concludes.