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William Marrazzo's musical training inspires a selfless leadership style

WHYY Inc. launches a fund-raising drive on Thursday, and it's a safe bet that William J. Marrazzo, the public media group's longtime chief executive, won't be asked to sing for support on the radio.

William Marrazzo, chief executive officer and president at WHYY, inside a control booth. (YONG KIM/Staff Photographer)
William Marrazzo, chief executive officer and president at WHYY, inside a control booth. (YONG KIM/Staff Photographer)Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

WHYY Inc. launches a fund-raising drive on Thursday, and it's a safe bet that William J. Marrazzo, the public media group's longtime chief executive, won't be asked to sing for support on the radio.

But, it might not be so far-fetched. In his college choir, Marrazzo's rich baritone helped him win the affections of his classmate, and now wife, Randi, a soprano who went on to become an opera singer. "When we first got together, I memorized all of her arias, and I could sing them all to her in bed," he said.

Marrazzo, 66, said he still loves to sing, but the demands of the job leave him no time for choirs. Instead, he performs solo in the shower. A recent selection: "La Vie En Rose."

What leadership lessons do you take from conductors?

The conductors I love watching are selfless, and what they do is to explore the landscape in front of them, and try to guide every individual's expression of contribution in a way that one plus one equals more than two. Executive leadership, conducting a choir, to me it all requires a pretty deep selflessness.

Broadcast ratings are down. What is WHYY's response?

The name of the game is to try to replace some of that, right? Our ratings, actually, on the TV side have been going up the last couple of years.

What is the overall strategy?

The introduction of digital media . . . has had a major impact. What you need to do is seed the development of new digital platforms and we're working aggressively on that.

Anything else?

What we've tried to do here is, culturally, get people to start thinking about themselves as content creators, not necessarily attached to the medium, whatever medium it is.

For example?

What we've needed to do is strategically subordinate distribution platforms. If I would have asked [Radio Times host] Marty Moss-Coane what [she] did for a living when I first came to WHYY, she would have said, 'I'm a radio producer.' You ask her today, and she's now a multimedia public affairs producer - sometimes on radio, sometimes on the Web, sometimes on TV and oftentimes off-air, and off-line.

So, the idea is to build reach through other media?

Terry Gross with Fresh Air from WHYY is the most listened to public radio show in the nation. Yet, while it's been growing in terms of market share, it's stupendous to watch what's been going on on the digital side. Three years ago, we began posting 1.2 million average podcast downloads a week. Today it's north of 3.5 million.

Recently Chris Satullo, WHYY's vice president for news, walked out of your office without a job. The staff convened in a nearby park, some weeping.

Chris made an enormous contribution to WHYY. I was anxious to recruit him here, and I'm glad I did, but you know, while his resignation was disappointing, I respect the reasons why he did it.

Would you have done the same in his shoes?

Yes, probably.

From what I understand, he was about to be fired.

That's not true. Business is like life. Doors shut down on you, particularly the executive side of running any business. You can't control it all. And as disappointing as it may be, other doors open up.

Can you elaborate?

It's a private personnel matter.

A change at the top can rock office morale. How do you handle that?

On the business side of the house, you continue to give people support and the opportunity to do high-quality work. There is no question in my mind that across WHYY, there is lots of good work to be done. That keeps morale up. No one of us, in any business, is bigger than the roles we are in.

You've faced some criticism for your compensation, which tops $550,000.

This is a public media company and I appreciate why you need to ask questions. But also, it's important to say that in the years I've been here, the top line of this company and the ratings of this company have done nothing but grow. . . . At the end of day, I get paid a very good salary, but it's all performance based, and the performance of this enterprise has been excellent.

Interview questions and answers have been edited for space.

jvonbergen@phillynews.com

215-854-2769

@JaneVonBergen