Malik Abdullah named vice president of product at NPR

Malik Abdullah

After a robust national search of internal and external candidates, NPR is excited to announce that Malik Abdullah has accepted the role of vice president of product, effective January 3, 2022. This digital media role is responsible for the strategic vision, execution and impact for NPR products and services across web, mobile, voice and emerging digital platforms and is a member of NPR's Leadership Team. Abdullah had been serving in this role in an acting capacity since September 2021. With the Product team, Abdullah will be responsible for imagining and executing the future of NPR's audience products and services to reflect, serve and inspire America.

Abdullah is a trusted leader across NPR, known for his ability to bring together people across divisions because of his deep understanding of both strategy and operations. His ability to straddle the content and digital sides of our operation with ease will allow us to anticipate the changing needs of our audiences — internally and externally — as we grow our business in new ways and evolve our product platforms to meet people where they are.

"What an amazing opportunity this is to lead an extremely talented group of product professionals at NPR," said Abdullah. "This team specializes in ensuring our products connect audiences to our content wherever they are while providing best in class user experiences. Because there is so much potential in NPR's content portfolio, I am most excited to work with other leaders on innovative ways to diversify and grow our audiences on both current and new platforms."

Abdullah joined NPR in 2017 as nanager of streaming media and was promoted to director of asset management and operations in January of 2020. In these roles, he had a leading role in digital content operations and led teams responsible for both media management and delivery of digital content. Prior to NPR, he spent 12 years at Viacom-BET Networks, first as senior streaming media manager and then director of media solutions. In these roles he leveraged a diverse range of technology options to achieve business goals, including initiating and overseeing new processes, training and workflows in support of BET's multiplatform offerings. He graduated from Howard University with a degree in systems and computer science.