KQED, the public media station serving Northern California, announces a pair of new additions to its Executive Management Team (EMT). Eric Abrams is KQED’s new Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, joining David Boutry, who recently became KQED’s new Chief Financial Officer.
Abrams will be responsible for planning and leading an organization-wide strategy to operationalize and embed principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at KQED. He brings an ideal repertoire of skills from his experiences leading DEI initiatives in higher education, where topics such as multiculturalism, intersectionality and unconscious bias first came to prominence. He has spent most of the last two decades in DEI leadership roles at both Stanford University and UC Berkeley.
“Eric will help us achieve our vision of a culture that centers on human dignity, equity and belonging,” says President and CEO Michael Isip. “To truly serve all of the Bay Area’s diverse communities, KQED staff and content must reflect and fully represent our diverse communities and their experiences. This role helps ensure our accountability to make DEI central to how we serve and operate.”
Abrams arrives at KQED from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where he served as Chief Inclusion Officer. There he helped develop an overarching vision for diversity and inclusion and founded the school’s first Inclusion Council. Earlier, Abrams served as the Director of Diversity Initiatives at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he was responsible for the school’s Equity, Inclusion and Diversity (EID) strategy to serve internal and external audiences. Abrams established and managed the Alumni and Student Diversity Advisory Committees and developed a Diversity Discussion Series for staff and MBA students, among other accomplishments.
Abrams’ work reaches beyond education circles. He is a regular speaker at a variety of conferences and has been a guest on KQED’s Forum and KQED Newsroom, where he discussed the diversity gap at tech companies. Abrams served as a board member at the Making Waves Academy, a charter school in Richmond, California; at 826 Valencia, a nonprofit dedicated to creative and expository writing skills for under-resourced students, in San Francisco; and as outgoing President of the Board of 826 National, the organization’s national network of writing and tutoring centers.