Industry Coach

John Keefe leads the news department at public radio station WNYC in New York City, and is one of the designers of "The Takeaway with John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji," a national morning show from WNYC produced in collaboration with Public Radio International, the BBC, the New York Times and WGBH Radio Boston. He also is executive producer of "On The Media," also produced by WNYC, which is distributed by National Public Radio. Under his direction, WNYC News has intensified its breaking news capacity, election coverage, crowdsourced journalism and investigative reporting.

Keefe has been instrumental to bringing "design thinking" to the station, driving fresh approaches to WNYC's programming and operations -- which includes redesigning election coverage, reimagining business reporting, building a new newsroom, altering staff hiring and developing innovative tools. He has worked in collaboration with staff at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University on several projects, including creation of "The Takeaway," graduate-level exercises in radio design and a Design+Media course he helped helped to craft and teach.

In other roles, Keefe has been the science editor at Discovery Channel Online; founder of a dot-com production company; a police reporter at two Wisconsin newspapers; and co-creator of a science adventure show for kids. He has also been an adjunct professor at Columbia University.

Keefe is a native of Minnesota, lives in Manhattan, and blogs at designAgitator.com.