Kathleen Carroll

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor and senior vice president of The Associated Press, is the top news executive of the world’s largest independent news agency.  

She is responsible for news content gathered by some 2,300 journalists working in more than 100 countries and distributed across all formats to a worldwide audience. She has driven to give AP coverage a new sophistication while meeting the evolving demands and capabilities of today’s multimedia formats. She led the AP through a major global restructuring so that 10 regional editing hubs around the globe now speed delivery of news once largely channeled from New York headquarters.

In addition, she has been a leader in decision-making about vital security issues for journalists covering stories in war zones and other hostile environments and on challenges to journalistic access. She has led AP’s global focus on journalism that holds government officials accountable to the people they lead. During her tenure, the AP has expanded its footprint into several key locations, including the groundbreaking expansion into North Korea and Myanmar.

Before becoming AP’s executive editor, in 2002, she was an editor and news executive with the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau and the AP in Washington, California, New Jersey and her native Texas. She also has worked at the International Herald Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News and the Dallas Morning News and studied at the University of Texas at Arlington.

She is vice-chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists board, serves on the Associated Press Media Editors board, and was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 2003-2012, the last year as co-chair.