Schiller took unconventional route to the top at NPR

Vivian Schiller, NPR’s new c.e.o., tells the American Journalism Review in a profile that her career as a tour guide in the Soviet Union prepared her for managing at media companies. “I think when I retire I’m going to write a book called Everything I Know I Learned as a Tour Guide, including how to lead the conga line.” On the subject of NPR’s future, she says: “I’ve been proselytizing a little bit about the incredible opportunity that NPR has that no other media organization has, to create a constellation of hyperlocal sites that provide inhabitants of communities with national news, local news and information tools for their communities. This has been sort of the Holy Grail for many media companies … and I think NPR’s the only organization that’s positioned to do it.”