After more than six years leading Boston’s WBUR, Margaret Low is preparing to hand off the CEO job. The NPR station’s first leader to assume the chief executive moniker will stay through next summer, then move to its board, while the station searches for her successor.
Low announced the decision in an email to staff on Tuesday.
Low joined NPR at 23 as an overnight production assistant and rose to Senior Vice President for News, the network’s top editorial job. She then spent five years running The Atlantic’s live events division before becoming WBUR’s first CEO in January 2020. The organization was previously led by General Managers.
She has led WBUR through a turbulent period, including COVID and the 2025 clawback of federal public media funding which cost WBUR roughly $1.6 million a year. She also built out programming at CitySpace, the station’s events venue, and launched the WBUR Festival in 2025.
In a social media post, she wrote, “Leading this organization has been pure joy, thanks to my peerless colleagues and their daily quest for excellence. WBUR has served Boston and the region for 76 years. We have the wisdom of age and the zeal of a start-up. Together we’ve faced down a gauntlet of challenges, and we’re soaring. While this is my last ‘big job’ — I’m not done with journalism or trying to make the world a better place.”
