Cindy Prater is Vice President of Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness at New York Public Radio. Prater has been an integral part of the company’s management team during a period of tremendous growth. During her seven year tenure, New York Public Radio has grown from a two station operation with 114 employees into a multimedia company operating seven radio stations, various digital properties and the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. The company now employs 309 people in addition to interns and temporary staff.
Prater has more than twenty years of organization development, strategic planning and human resource experience. She co-led the design, build-out and relocation to New York Public Radio’s new offices and studios at 160 Varick Street, which received Leeds Gold certification. Prater also managed the incubator stage of the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, which occupies the ground floor of this new facility.
Prater has championed diversity and inclusion through training, dialogue and action. During her tenure and through the shared efforts of the staff, NYPR was recognized by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists with an American Scene Award in 2009, a national competition that recognizes excellence in the employment and portrayal of women, minorities, seniors, people with disabilities and the LGBT community in a positive, balanced and realistic manner. She oversees annual goal setting across the organization and is a key partner in the organization’s strategic planning. She led a task force on the future of journalism and has worked with the senior staff to align the organization’s structure, resources, skills and workflows to integrate broadcast and digital content and to create the capacity and infrastructure to execute forward-looking plans.
Previously, Prater held human resources positions at organizations operating multiple domestic and international sites ranging in size from $60M to multi-billion: Chemical Bank (now JP Morgan Chase), Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank), Associated Press, Hungry Minds (formerly IDG, publisher of reference books including the “Books for Dummies” series), and Brooklyn Academy of Music. At these organizations, she introduced a grassroots employee involvement program that had a net positive annual impact of $2.3M to the bottom-line; designed and implemented self-directed work teams as an organizational and management model; oversaw complex business relocations and start-up; managed due diligence for multiple global acquisitions and led strategic change initiatives and restructurings.
She has a successful history of helping organizations conceive, plan and manage change, scale capacity to need and achieve strategic goals, especially in environments of acquisition, dynamic growth and emerging technology. As a lover of music, she has also owned and operated an indie record label and provided consulting services to other indie music companies and artists.
Born in Texas, Prater holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in International Management from Pace University and is also certified in Harvard’s Program on Negotiation. She has designed and taught classes on managing strategic change, diversity and inclusion, employment law, strategic staffing and interviewing, and leadership. Prater resides in Brooklyn.
