Courtesy of Vermont Public | Jim Westphalen
Vermont Public's offices in Colchester
Vermont Public has a new leader. The nonprofit’s board of directors announced on Friday that it has hired Vijay Singh, a 39-year-old public media veteran, to be its next chief executive officer.
Singh will oversee a staff of more than 100 and an annual budget of nearly $20 million. He succeeds Brendan Kinney, who has served as interim CEO since Scott Finn’s departure last year.
Vermont Public's board of directors said it chose Singh unanimously following a national search. In a press release, Singh said he was thrilled to join the news outlet at a "pivotal time for public media and our country."
“I believe in public media as an essential service for the people of Vermont to inform, educate, entertain and empower us to shape our future," he said.
Singh began his media career as a documentary filmmaker and has held senior positions in the private sector and in public radio.
Most recently, Singh spent eight months as the chief operating and content officer at Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, an NPR affiliate going through a rough patch. The station laid off roughly a dozen employees last fall,
citing financial problems. Then, this month,
a forensic audit reported instances of misspent funds and conflicts of interest. The audit examined a three-year period that mostly preceded Singh's tenure.
The Vermont Public press release announcing his hiring said Singh "effectively and skillfully" led CapRadio through a period of "significant change."
Steering the organization "through chaos" is how Singh described his brief tenure to Vermont Public's Nina Keck, who published
a story about the incoming CEO on Friday.
Singh told Keck that he was excited to return to the Northeast, where he grew up. His parents immigrated from Guyana and settled in a small upstate New York town.
“My connection to the world was media and public media in particular,” Singh said. “So when thinking about the job to be done to serve people who need public media the most, it’s very personal for me.”
He plans to move to Vermont with his wife, Amanda, and will begin his role on October 1.