After a competitive, monthslong search process, WAMU has hired Erika Pulley-Hayes to lead the station as its new general manager. Pulley-Hayes, president and CEO of Community Communications, Inc., an NPR affiliate in Orlando, Florida, will start her new role August 30.

Pulley-Hayes told DCist in an interview Monday that she is most excited about joining the “spirit and energy” of Washington.

“Washington, D.C., is really a public radio station’s dream market,” she says. “D.C. is the seventh media market in the country. That’s a big deal. So I just think there are so many positives about this opportunity, in this city, at this university, with this station. If you’re going to be in public media, this is where you want to be.”

Pulley-Hayes, 49, has worked in public media since 2005 and, since January 2020, has managed two public radio stations in Central Florida — WMFE in Orlando and WMFV in The Villages. Before that role, she served as vice president of radio for the D.C.-based nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports more than 1,500 publicly-owned media organizations across the U.S. — including WAMU — with taxpayer funds. Before her time at CPB, Pulley-Hayes managed legal operations at a small clinical research organization in Northern Virginia. In September 2020, Pulley-Hayes was elected to the NPR Board of Directors.

Pulley-Hayes succeeds JJ Yore, who stepped down last August after six years at WAMU. His departure came amid a public reckoning for the station, stemming from a DCist investigation that uncovered allegations of sexual harassment against a former reporter and tweets by former and current employees who said the station had a history of mistreating staffers of color.

Yore’s resignation precipitated the creation of a new task force that comprised WAMU and American University leadership and staff members, organization-wide meetings about workplace culture with an outside consultant, and a nationwide search for the new GM. (Disclosure: AU holds the license for DCist’s parent company, WAMU.)

Pulley-Hayes says she is excited, more than anything, to come back to a place she called home for two decades and to lead a station she reveres.

“WAMU is the first public radio station that I got to know intimately during my time in D.C.,” she says. “It was my introduction to public radio.”

Prior to joining CPB in 2005, Pulley-Hayes said she knew little about public radio, aside from the jazz station in New Jersey that her father listened to when she was growing up (which she said she had little interest in as a child). When she arrived in D.C., she listened to 88.5 during her commute to and from work, and began embracing the industry she advocated for on a daily basis. She helped secure grants for the station during her tenure, she says.

In a statement, a WAMU spokesperson said that as general manager, Pulley-Hayes will “oversee all aspects of WAMU’s operations and a staff of more than 100, and she will serve as WAMU’s ambassador to the Washington, D.C.region and the public media system.”

Pulley-Hayes says she thought about applying for the GM position when Yore resigned, but did not pursue it immediately: “I was here [in Florida], and I was working.”

A recruiter called and asked if she was interested, to which she said, “Yes.”

“Maybe I manifested my own destiny,” she says smiling, months later.

The station considered more than 130 candidates for the role, according to Seth Grossman, a VP at American University and chief of staff to the president, who led the station’s search committee. Grossman has also served as interim GM of WAMU since Yore’s departure.

“The process was very competitive, and it produced an excellent new general manager for WAMU. In Erika Pulley-Hayes, we have found the perfect leader to take the helm of WAMU and lead it into a new era,” Grossman said in a statement.

He continued, “Erika has the ideal combination of an impressive background in public media, strong management skills, and vision for the station. I am confident that Erika will, in partnership with the Chief Content Officer, the other members of the leadership team, and the staff, take WAMU to even greater heights in terms of the quality of its journalism, the range of its broadcast and digital services, engagement with the communities in D.C., the workplace experience for staff, and leadership within the public media system.”

Asked how she plans to lead WAMU as it grapples with its internal culture and seeks to continue building trust with listeners, Pulley-Hayes said she draws on a quote she once heard: “Leaders ask great questions.”

“Listening to the voice of everyone on staff is really important,” she says. “I think we’re shifting from this top-down approach — I call that management — to being more about what leaders do. And leaders, in my opinion, create the space for people to do their best work.”

Pulley-Hayes adds that she wants to create a culture where staff are encouraged to take “smart risks,” be creative, and yes, even fail, “because you learn through failure.”

In an interview earlier this year with Public Media Women In Leadership Pulley-Hayes shared her thoughts on workplace culture, explaining that she prefers using the term “team” instead of “family” in work settings. A team, she explained, shares a common goal and relies on each member to accomplish that goal. In a family-style setting, staff members are “emotionally bound” and tolerate each other’s dysfunction.

“That’s the kind of thing we don’t need in our station, or our system, because it impedes progress,” she said.

Through the Cracks, WAMU’s recent podcast about 8-year-old Relisha Rudd, who disappeared from a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. in 2014, is an example of the type of creativity and risk-taking Pulley-Hayes says she hopes to foster when she starts next month.

“It just seemed like something that public media should be doing,” she says.

Originally from Morristown, New Jersey, Pulley-Hayes says she enjoys spending time with her two sons, doing yoga, and going to food festivals and concerts.

She says her time leading WMFE and WMFV in Florida was like a crash course in public radio operations, and she learned the ins and outs of fundraising pledge drives, show programming, development and more — all during the pandemic.

Now, she hopes to bring that knowledge and what she calls a contagious enthusiasm, to Washington. She hopes to expand WAMU’s local news coverage — in line with a plan the station released in March — specifically driving up coverage in surrounding suburbs like Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Fairfax counties where millions of potential listeners and readers reside. She envisions WAMU hosting more events outside of D.C. and finding new ways to engage the audience.

Pulley-Hayes says she knows her vision will take time and resources, but she’s ready to bring in a new era.

“The future is bright,” she says. “I’m excited. I’m grateful for this opportunity, that so many believed in me for this particular moment in time. I have no preconceived notion that this is going to be an easy job. I know it’s not going to be an easy job, but it’s definitely going to be a rewarding one.”

WAMU and American University senior executives did not review this story prior to publication.