Erika Pulley-Hayes is General Manager of WAMU, a top radio station in the D.C. metro area. She came to WAMU in 2021, a seasoned manager with more than two decades of experience in public media. Under her leadership, WAMU has increased audience, community engagement and the resources necessary to serve an informed community through local, independent journalism across platforms.  

Erika previously served as president and chief executive officer of Community Communications, Inc., where she managed two Florida public radio stations, WMFE in Orlando and WMFV in The Villages. Prior to that, she served as vice president of radio at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), where she provided strategic leadership and developed innovative initiatives to help local stations successfully build journalism capacity and meet audiences where they are. She also developed the policies that governed CPB’s Community Service Grant program, which, until 2025, was public radio’s largest funding source, supporting more than 400 organizations operating public radio stations nationwide.

Erika serves on the board of directors of NPR and on the Advisory Council of the Freedom Forum. She’s also an alumna of Leadership Greater Washington, the premiere organization bringing together community leaders to identify, examine and actively address civic issues across the region. Erika has an MBA and an MS in Nonprofit Management from the University of Maryland’s Global Campus and a BA from William Paterson University in her home state of New Jersey.