Vice President of Programming and Operations, PBS

Adaora Udoji

Adaora is an award-winning media executive and producer with expertise in digital and emerging technology. Currently, she is Vice President of Programming and Operations for PBS General Audiences. She leads editorial, operations, production management, business, and content operations teams across news, current affairs, and indie films television, and digital platforms, as well as providing support across PBS business activities.

Previously, she was an executive at RLab, worked in venture capital, and ran a media-tech startup, News Deeply. She has deep expertise in operations, digital products, platforms and virtual production (AI, machine learning, and other emerging tech). As a journalist and foreign correspondent based in London, she covered wars, presidential elections, hurricanes, global sporting events, and everything in between on four continents; covering some of the most compelling stories of our time. She was a correspondent, and anchor at ABC News, CNN, and New York Public Radio (along with the NYT, BBC, GBH and PRI), winning awards, including recognition by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, The National Press Club, The Peabody Awards and the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for her reporting and executive work leading teams. Essence Magazine named her one of the 25 Most Influential African Americans.

She is a trustee at The Hewitt School, and an advisor at The New Museum, NEW Inc. For nearly a decade she has been an adjunct professor at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts and the Tandon School of Engineering. She has served as an advisor for the Sundance Institute Interdisciplinary Program, the Broadway Accelerator, the Global Innovation Board at the Guggenheim Museum, a juror for SXSW, and a judge Tribeca Festival Storyscape Prize (Immersive) and Black Public Media’s Pitch Black.

Adaora graduated from the University of Michigan and received a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law. She holds dual American and Irish Citizenship and has lived on four continents.