TPT Leadership

Sylvia Strobel

PRESIDENT & CEO
[email protected]

Sylvia joined Twin Cities PBS in February of 2020. As the CEO of one of our nation’s foremost PBS stations, she is leading the organization into an exciting new future: expanding TPT’s content, distribution, and funding strategies to take full advantage of 21st century tools, technologies, and consumer interests.

Before joining TPT, Sylvia worked for more than 25 years in the public media industry as an executive and attorney, with positions at ideastream, American Public Media Group, Pennsylvania Public Television Network and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She began her career in public media in TPT’s legal department. Sylvia has served on numerous national boards and commissions, including the board of NPR, the Alliance for Women in Media, the Association of Junior Leagues International and the FCC’s Advisory Committee for Diversity in the Digital Age. She currently serves on the boards of the MacPhail Center for Music and Latino Public Broadcasting. Sylvia received her undergraduate degree in biology from St. Olaf College, a juris doctor from Mitchell|Hamline College of Law and a master’s in business administration from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Business.

Melissa Wright

CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER
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Melissa leads all content departments at Twin Cities PBS (TPT), and is responsible for driving the strategy, vision and execution of all multi-platform content, including local and national broadcast and digital programming, publications, educational curriculum, websites, marketing and communications. Melissa previously served as TPT’s Senior Vice President of Legal.

Prior to joining TPT, Melissa was the Externship Director at William Mitchell College of Law, Senior Counsel at Wells Fargo Corporation, and Assistant Attorney General at the Minnesota State Attorney General’s Office. She currently is on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Women in Media and the Board of Trustees of Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Melissa received her law degree from William Mitchell College of Law and her Bachelor of Arts from St. Olaf College.

Amina Jaafar

CHIEF INCLUSION OFFICER
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For nearly 15 years, Amina has worked to advance diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and social and racial justice, across higher education and the nonprofit sector both nationally and internationally. Amina most recently served as the Assistant Vice President in the Office for Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota, where she provided oversight for education programming, strategic planning and communications, evaluation, and campus climate initiatives. Through her work, Amina focuses on cultivating strong working relationships to create cultural change; facilitating challenging conversations to help individuals and communities move towards understanding and partnership; and providing strategic direction to help organizations meaningfully advance their DEI work.

In addition to her leadership role at the University, Amina also served as an affiliate faculty member in the College of Education and Human Development, where she taught courses on developing intercultural competence, intercultural communications, and the social and cultural foundations of education. Amina received her Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development from the University of Minnesota, where she studied how representations of BIPOC communities impact policy and practice.

Jennifer (Jenn) Schmidt

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
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Jenn oversees Finance, Accounting, Technology, Engineering and Building Services at TPT. Her focus, in addition to providing financial leadership to the management team, is to design and deliver efficient processes related to high quality financial information and TPT’s physical environment. Prior to joining TPT, Jenn held leadership positions in Finance at several Minnesota organizations including Archway Marketing Services, Pearson, Ameriprise, US Bank, and Pillsbury. She earned her degree in Business Administration/Accounting from Augsburg College and is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA).

Elizabeth C. Allen

CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER
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Elizabeth oversees the development and implementation of organizational strategies to support TPT’s revenue goals. Leading our revenue units including Membership, Major and Planned Giving, Institutional Giving and Sponsorships teams, Elizabeth and her team drive funding support by connecting the values and mission of the funder to TPT’s exceptional work to educate our improve the communities we serve. Before TPT, Elizabeth held leadership roles at Socrata where she worked government entities to build best-in-class transparency initiatives to enrich the lives of their citizens; and at Reeher where she was committed to help colleges and universities find more high-value donors and access to the tools and information they need to measure their performance. Outside her professional roles, Elizabeth is an avid volunteer including serving as Treasurer of the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Elizabeth holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and an Executive MBA from the Opus School of Business at the University of St. Thomas.

Deb Ekeren

VP, HUMAN RESOURCES
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With over 25 years of human resources leadership experience, Deb has been instrumental in building exceptional workplaces by aligning human resource practices with strategic goals. She believes passionately that one of the most important ingredients to a successful organization is a dynamic, inclusive, respectful and engaging workforce. She brings experience leading human resources within the nonprofit sector at The Center for Victims of Torture, Council on Crime & Justice and Chrysalis. In addition, she has collaborated with a number of other organizations as a human resources consultant, partnering with leaders during periods of change. She has a B.A. from Hamline University and an M.A. in human resources management from St. Mary’s University, and she holds SPHR and SHRM-CP certifications.

Lynn Farmer

VP, MARKETING
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With over 25 years of marketing and business experience, Lynn Farmer brings for-profit, nonprofit business, and higher education marketing acumen to TPT. She worked at Target Corporation for 18 years in successive roles including merchandising, marketing, and strategic business capacities. After an accomplished career at Target, Farmer established her own consulting firm, Farmer Consulting, using her skills to build capacity for nonprofits and small businesses. In 2016, Lynn charted a new course at Hamline University bringing her enterprise skills to reshape Hamline’s marketing department and launch new brand and website initiatives.

Lynn has served as a moderator at the Minnesota Marketing Summit and the American Marketing Association Symposium on Higher Education. Lynn has also been involved with numerous community organizations including serving on the boards of the Minnesota Independent School Forum (current), former board chair of the Northside Economic Opportunity Network (NEON), Brightwater Montessori School, as well as volunteering for organizations like the Brand Lab and Achieve Minneapolis.

Lynn received her B.A in Marketing from Howard University. Lynn is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Jack and Jill of America, Inc.

Melinda Hoke

VP, PHILANTHROPY
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Philanthropy has been Melinda’s career, inspiring donors and organizations through Major Giving, Planned Giving and Capital Campaigns. A veteran in Public Media, she led teams at Minnesota Public Radio’s campaign for the expansion of MPR’s headquarters, and the recent Campaign for TPT, for capital, programs and endowment. She served the disability community for Courage Center and grew major and planned giving programs at the University of Minnesota throughout colleges and campuses, along with transformational capital campaigns. Recently Melinda served as PBS Advancing Philanthropy faculty, and volunteers as a speaker, consultant and mentor for PBS stations, AFP and MPGC. Receiving degrees in Music Performance and Music Therapy, she established a clinical music therapy practice in chemical dependency and served the NAMT to write the credentialing program for professional certification of music therapists.

Kristin Pederson

VP, TPT EDUCATION
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Kristin joined Twin Cities PBS in 2001 to lead educational outreach and public relations for DragonflyTV, an Emmy Award-winning national PBS children’s science series. Her roles within TPT have since varied, but have held a distinct emphasis on science, health, history, gender equity and cultural responsiveness. She has developed, contributed to and/or led projects supported by the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Institutes of Health, and NASA, as well as multiple corporations and foundations.

While Kristin focused on multiple STEM projects, such as SciGirls and When Whales Walked: Journeys in Deep Time, she has developed and led outreach, engagement and promotion on many of TPT’s award-winning general audience projects. These include Depression: Out of the Shadows, The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer’s, The New Medicine, FAT: What No One Is Telling You, Slavery by Another Name and Constitution USA with Peter Sagal. She holds a B.A. from Saint Olaf College in Northfield, MN., and an M.A. from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO.

David Preston

VP, MEMBER SERVICES
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As Vice President of Membership & Viewer Services, David Preston leads a team of staff and volunteers who advance the station’s legacy of viewer support by welcoming and stewarding its 109,000 members. A native Minnesotan, David received his Bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Minnesota and has worked at Twin Cities PBS for more than 35 years. Across that time, he has been instrumental in building one of the largest and strongest membership programs in the nation. He is also a leader in the PBS system and for more than a decade has served on the PBS Development Advisory Council where he provides guidance on fundraising to stations and is an expert mentor and trainer to station staff nationwide. In 2014, David was awarded the PBS Development Professional of the Year award in recognition of his positive impact.

Michael Rosenfeld

VP, NATIONAL PRODUCTIONS
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As Vice President of National Production at Twin Cities PBS, he oversees programs about history, science and American society for national broadcast on PBS. Michael Rosenfeld is an award-winning filmmaker and writer with extensive leadership experience in documentary production and digital media. As an executive producer and production company president, he has helmed a number of legendary series, including the National Geographic Specials. In a career spanning network, cable, and public television, Rosenfeld has won dozens of industry awards, including 11 News & Documentary Emmys.