Jon Abbott, Board Chair

Jon Abbott is a nationally recognized public media and social enterprise executive who has served in a number of leadership roles across his career. 

He served as President & CEO of GBH (also known as the WGBH Educational Foundation) from 2007 through 2022.  Jon transformed the way GBH creates and distributes educationally rich content to millions of Americans throughout New England and across the nation. He has expanded GBH’s media services, impact, and reach locally and nationally—on TV, radio, the Web, and mobile, in living rooms and classrooms. He championed GBH’s early adoption of digital technologies, new content creation models, best practices, and cost efficiencies that are furthering GBH’s capacity to produce programming and content in the public interest, supported by the public GBH serves. 

Working closely with Thirteen/WNET and American Public Television, he co-led the launch of two national digital channels: Create (showcasing lifestyle programming) and World (nonfiction documentaries celebrating diverse voices). In partnership with PBS, he led the launch of PBS LearningMedia, a free national online service pioneered by GBH that offers classroom-ready digital resources and lesson plans tied to state and national standards; a service utilized educators in 50 states.

Under Abbott’s leadership, GBH invested in promising R&D projects to further public media’s mission.  Jon was instrumental in bringing public media leaders together to create the Contributor Development Partnership, to identify and scale best practices for building member support and establish the first-ever national reference dataset tracking practices and performance.

Abbott joined GBH as General Manager in 1998. Prior to coming to GBH, he served six years as Senior Vice President for Development and Corporate Relations at PBS and five years in senior management with San Francisco public station KQED. A longtime jazz enthusiast, he got his start in broadcasting in 1981 at Columbia University Station WKCR-FM. 

He has served on the boards of PBS, PRX, PRI,  of the Public Television Major Market Group, PRI (Public Radio International), National Public Media (NPM), American Documentary/POV, American Public Television (APT), PBS Distribution, and Project Healthy Children.  He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He holds a BA from Columbia University and an MBA from Stanford University.

Chuck Longfield

Chuck Longfield retired in 2018 after serving as Blackbaud’s Chief Scientist since January 2007.  He is the founder of Target Software and Target Analysis Group, now Blackbaud companies. Longfield has extensive experience designing and implementing national and international constituency databases, and addressing the information needs at many of the world’s largest not-for-profit organizations.

He is certified to teach secondary school mathematics and, prior to founding the Target companies in 1992, taught math to middle and high school students.  Mr. Longfield is Fundraising Success Magazine’s 2007 Fundraising Professional of the Year recipient for Lifetime Achievement and received the DMA 2012 Max Hart Nonprofit Achievement Award.

He holds a B.A. in Mathematics and a M.Ed. from Harvard University.  Mr. Longfield is very involved with efforts to improve urban, public education and serves on the executive committee of Boston Leaders for Education. He is President of the Longfield Family Foundation and serves on the boards of the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact and the Philanthropy Centre, a UK nonprofit that researches best practices in philanthropy.

Carlos Barrionuevo

Carlos Barrionuevo is a Director at Public Media Company where he draws upon 20 years of developing business ideas and forging partnerships to focus on sustainable growth strategies for public and independent media in communities across the U.S. 

Barrionuevo previously served as Senior Director of Business Development at NPR, leading the formation of National Public Media and the planning for NPR Music. In addition, he played a pivotal role in the acquisition of Public Interactive from PRI and established a partnership with commercial radio broadcasters and public radio stations to provide HD data-casting services. 

At Tribune Company, Barrionuevo led acquisitions of TV stations and created partnerships with AOL, and served in leadership roles in numerous digital ventures, culminating with his role as Chief Operating Officer of Blackvoices.com. Carlos is currently serving on the Maine Broadband Authority, helping local communities secure funds for community-driven rural broadband initiatives.

Michal Heiplik

Michal Heiplik is the President and a co-founder of the Contributor Development Partnership (CDP). As a 20-year public broadcasting veteran, Michal has extensive experience in database management, membership development, and in identifying fundraising practices that drive positive results. His analytic approach to fundraising and operational problems has given rise to innovation and positive results in his past endeavors. Through identification, sharing, and execution of sound fundraising practices, Michal works to generate new ways in which stations can collaboratively add prospects and increase net revenues.

His previous role as Executive Director for Local Development at WGBH amplified his expertise in all aspects of membership. In this role, he oversaw all levels of membership at the Boston station – the largest membership fundraising program in New England. His department focused on individual giving, direct mail solicitation, online giving, door-to-door, digital and on-air fundraising. As a result of his efforts, WGBH improved its fundraising program by raising 25% more net revenue on an annual basis. Prior to WGBH, Michal worked in many different roles at Houston Public Media. He constructed the station’s fundraising database and later moved the entire organization onto a state-of-the-art fundraising platform. This platform enabled dramatic improvement in fundraising results. He later left his position as Membership Director to lead the national data collaboration that led to the creation of CDP.

Michal is a frequent speaker at national fundraising conferences. He continues to lead and participate in many strategic working groups focused on various issues around fundraising. He has a proven track record in building collaboration among various stakeholders and leading large-scale national marketing implementations. He is recognized for creating data-driven solutions that enable more effective execution of fundraising projects.

Michal is a graduate from the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the University of Houston, the #1 ranked entrepreneurship program in the U.S. His entrepreneurial spirit guides his approach to problem solving as he applies his skill to his passion – helping Public Media stations succeed.

Ron Hetrick

Ron Hetrick became WITF’s President & CEO in April 2019, only the sixth executive to lead the 56-year-old public media organization. Ron works to enrich civic life in Pennsylvania by connecting WITF’s worthwhile information, entertainment and educational services to the region and ensuring that WITF’s content remains accessible and relevant to the community it serves.

From 2000 to 2019, Hetrick served in increasingly critical roles in WITF, with a key responsibility to strategically align WITF services and activities with the organization's vision and mission. As Senior VP of Finance and Administration from 2015 onward, Ron supervised finance, philanthropy, corporate sponsorship and human resources, serving as a member of the senior team tasked with content development, operations, business strategy and information technology.

A Pennsylvania native, Ron grew up in Harrisburg and helped to run a family-owned technology business, ultimately preparing the company for acquisition. Prior to coming to WITF, Ron worked for Flight Systems, a Daimler-Chrysler electronics manufacturer, in an information technology management role.

Ron earned a Doctorate in Business Administration from Temple University, an MBA from Villanova University, a BS in Computer Science and an AS in Electrical Engineering Technology from the Pennsylvania State University. Ron's doctoral research explored the effects of corporate governance practices on nonprofit financial performance in institutions with accumulated wealth.

Ron is currently co-founder and board member of the Information Equity Initiative and previously served as board chair of the Public Media Business Association and board member and finance chair for Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, then engaged in a major capital campaign and construction project.

Deanna Martin Mackey

Deanna Martin Mackey is the general manager of KPBS. She has been committed to equity for women and girls, particularly women of color, throughout her more than 30-year career in nonprofit management and executive leadership in media.

Her most recent role is president of the Public Television Major Market Group (PTMMG), a consortium of the 40 largest PBS member stations in the U.S. She focuses her time on leadership/culture, revenue generation, audience development and digital on behalf of the group as well as national partnerships and system leadership activities. 

Previously, Mackey worked for 25 years at KPBS, serving as COO in her final six years at the station. Prior to her earlier work with KPBS, Mackey was a writer and editor for several San Diego-based publications and spent her early years as a radio news writer. 

In 2015, Mackey co-founded Public Media Women in Leadership, to provide mentorship/training for women in her industry and address issues of gender inequity in public media. 

Mackey is also committed to public service. She is a troop leader for Girl Scouts San Diego and is vice-chair of the board of directors of Parks, California, an organization whose mission is to make California state parks and public lands welcoming, inclusive and climate resilient spaces to truly serve all Californians, particularly underserved communities. She also serves on the governance and nominating committee of inewsource, a San Diego based non-profit investigative newsroom. 

Mackey received the Hera Heroine Leadership Award from Hera Hub, Outstanding Alumnus honor from SDSU’s Daily Aztec newspaper, named a YWCA Tribute to Women & Industry honoree for her work mentoring women at KPBS and the Girl Scouts, and was named one of five “Women who Move the City” by San Diego Magazine.

Mackey earned her Bachelor of Arts from San Diego State University with a double major in journalism and political science. She lives in San Diego and is married to Christopher Ingalls. She and her husband have five children between them, one granddaughter, and one lovely Lab.

Jeffrey Rayport

Jeffrey F. Rayport is a strategic advisor in marketing services, online media, and e-commerce, with a focus on new business opportunities enabled by emerging digital technologies. Rayport currently serves on the faculty of the Harvard Business School in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit, where he teaches in both MBA and Executive Education programs.

Prior to his affiliation with HBS, Rayport was as an Operating Partner at Castanea Partners, a mid-size private equity firm specializing in retail, consumer brands, and marketing services, and a Special Advisor to Bain Capital Ventures. He was also founder and Managing Partner of Marketspace LLC, a digital strategy and advisory firm. As a spin-off of that business, he co-founded and grew a custom executive development and e-learning business, which he established as an affiliate of Monitor Deloitte, where he was a Senior Partner. In related pursuits, Rayport was a co-founder and faculty member of several corporate universities, including at Omnicom Group (NYSE:OMC); Bertelsmann AG; and Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN). As a keynote speaker, he is represented exclusively by Washington Speakers Bureau.

Previously, Rayport was a Faculty member at HBS for nearly a decade, teaching and doing research in Marketing and Service Management. While at HBS, he developed and delivered the first graduate-level e-commerce course in the nation, enrolling nearly 2,000 MBA students. In building the course, Rayport authored nearly a hundred case studies and related materials. Business plans written by students gave rise to dozens of start-ups, including Yahoo! Prior to his taking a leave from HBS, Rayport coined the term “viral marketing.” He was also voted Outstanding Professor for three years in a row by the HBS Students Association.

Rayport has published a series of leading MBA-level textbooks on strategy in the networked economy with McGraw-Hill/Irwin (e-Commerce, Cases in e-Commerce, and Introduction to e-Commerce) with co-author Bernard J. Jaworski. He and Jaworski also published a bestselling trade book for Harvard Business Review Press on reinventing service businesses, Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces with Customers.

Rayport has written as a blogger for Harvard Business Review Online and a columnist for Bloomberg BusinessWeek Online. He has contributed to other publications, including Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CIO Magazine, Financial Times, Fast Company, Forbes.com, Harvard Business Review, MarketWatch, McKinsey Quarterly, Strategy & Business, and MIT Technology Review.

He has served as a director of both public and private corporations. These include International Data Group, Hanley Wood, MediaMath, Monster Worldwide (NYSE:MWW), and Shoprunner. Past directorships include Conversant (NASDAQ:CNVR); GSI Commerce (NASDAQ:GSIC), now eBay Enterprise, where he was a founding director; iCrossing; CBS MarketWatch (NASDAQ: MKTW); Agency.com (NASDAQ:ACOM); and Be Free (NASDAQ:BFRE). He is a Trustee of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA; an Overseer of Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA; and Chairman of the Board of From the Top (the #1 U.S. classical music radio and TV program, distributed through National Public Radio and PBS) also based in Boston, MA.

Rayport earned an A.B. at Harvard College, an M.Phil. in International Relations at the University of Cambridge (U.K.), and an A.M. and Ph.D. in Business History at Harvard University. 

Nick Ward

Nick Ward — investor and board member — has been in the business of Customer Relationship Management since before the advent of CRM software. For 20 years he was CEO and co-founder of MOHR Development, a company that focused on relationship management for large scale financial services and high-tech organizations. After MOHR was acquired by Siebel Systems in 2000, Nick served for 4 years as GM of Finance, Siebel’s largest vertical market.

In 2004 he co-founded OKERE, Inc and served as President and CEO. OKERE brought large scale financial services companies onto the emerging world of cloud based CRM. OKERE became Salesforce.com Ventures first investment. OKERE was acquired by Fujitsu in 2007.

Nick decided to follow his heart and values in 2010 when he became Chairman and co-founder of roundCorner, the company that partnered with Salesforce.org to bring NGOC to market as the first enterprise fundraising solution built on Salesforce technology. This was his introduction to GBH and, soon after, the CDP project where he committed himself to be a leading force in a team that would bring NGOC and related tools to the public media enterprise.

Nick spearheaded roundCorner’s key relationships with large customers such as ASPCA, Sierra Club, Feeding America, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. After Salesforce.Org acquired roundCorner in 2019, Nick served as VP of Strategic Customer Adoption helping to transition key customers into their new relationship with Salesforce before returning to his non-profit roots in public media with CDP.

Nick lives on a mountain top in Vermont with his wife Leslie and assorted animals and visiting children. He is a graduate of Williams College and was a PhD fellow with an MA in American Civilization from Brown University.