Iowa PBS General Manager Reelected to PBS Board

Molly Phillips to serve a second three year term

Molly Phillips, executive director and general manager of Iowa PBS, has been elected to serve a second term as a professional director on the national PBS Board of Directors. The results of the board elections were shared following the public broadcasting service’s September meeting, held virtually from the PBS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

“As PBS celebrates 50 years, our service to the American public has never been more important,” said PBS President and Chief Executive Officer Paula Kerger. “Thanks to the extraordinary leadership of the PBS Board of Directors, public television will continue to serve as a beacon of thoughtful and thought-provoking media for generations to come.”

The 27-person PBS board includes professional directors, who are station leaders, and general directors, who serve as lay members of the board, as well as the PBS president. The PBS board of directors is responsible for governing and setting policy for PBS. General and professional directors of the PBS board are elected to three-year terms and serve without pay.

“It is my great honor to serve alongside some really remarkable leaders - professionals from within and from beyond the public media world - all in service to our state and national audiences,” said Phillips. “I have enjoyed working with my colleagues across the country to assure public media continues to educate, inform, enrich and inspire. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue advancing our mission and ensuring the strength of public broadcasting now and well into the future.”

Biographical Information

Molly Phillips is executive director and general manager for Iowa PBS, where she has been responsible for leading Iowa’s only statewide broadcast network since 2013. She has served Iowa PBS since 1990, devoting her career to the advancement of public television and Iowa PBS’s mission to educate, inform, enrich and inspire Iowans. Phillips was previously the director of communications and community engagement at Iowa PBS, where for nearly 15 years she was responsible for the network’s state and federal public policy advocacy. America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) presented her with its National Advocacy Award in 2010.

Phillips has volunteered her time and talents to a long list of organizations advancing the vision and goals of public media. She was elected to and currently serves as chair on the APTS Board of Trustees, where she also chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is an active member of the Organization of State Broadcasting Executives (OSBE). Phillips was elected to and currently serves on the Public Broadcasting Service Board of Directors, where she is co-chair of the PBS Diversity Advisory Committee. She also serves as past-chair on the National Education Telecommunications Association (NETA) Board of Directors, where she previously served as chair and secretary. As past-chair, she serves on the Affinity Group Coalition of Public Media Organizations where she is leading an initiative to create professional development training opportunities for public media employees.

She completed the PBS Executive Leadership program in 2015 and is frequently invited to speak on the value, education benefits and opportunities offered by public media. She presented at the 2019 and 2020 NETA conferences, the 2018, 2019 and 2020 APTS Public Media Summits, and the 2017 Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Board Meeting.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business degree from Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. Phillips was raised in Southwest Iowa and she currently resides in Grimes with her husband Steve. They have three grown children together: Courtney and twin boys Taylor and Trevor.

About PBS
PBS, with nearly 350 member stations, offers all Americans the opportunity to explore new ideas and new worlds through television and digital content. Each month, PBS reaches nearly 100 million people through television and nearly 28 million people online, inviting them to experience the worlds of science, history, nature and public affairs; to hear diverse viewpoints; and to take front row seats to world-class drama and performances. The full release on the recent PBS Board election can be found at pbs.org.