Brenda Williams-Butts
Brenda Williams-Butts is the Director of Community Engagement & Audience Development at New York Public Radio (NYPR), which is comprised of WNYC Radio, WQXR Radio and The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. New York Public Radio is the country’s largest public radio station with just about 2 million listeners (WNYC & WQXR) each week. In this role, Ms. Williams-Butts has brought more diverse voices and staff to the station and substantially increased listenership. She has spent the past 12 years as the guiding force behind the stations outreach, on-air content diversification and internal diversity initiatives for recruitment and retention. She has worked to build credibility and create authentic relations with WNYC’s core audience and communities of color by forming key community partnerships throughout NYC.
Ms. Williams-Butts created the highly-anticipated, sold-out WNYC Single Series, which not only serves as a substantial stream of revenue, but also deepens the connection with WNYC’s core audience and reaches out to new audiences. In addition, she galvanizes cross-organizational talent from radio producers to live space producers to marketing to publicity to present the highly-anticipated, annualized MLK event celebration, presenting an afternoon of discussion, music and poetry.