Deborah A. Cowan, CPA

Former Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer, NPR

Member of Consumer Reports’ Board of Directors since 2012. Ms. Cowan served as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of NPR from August 2010 until her retirement in June 2023. She brings over 30 years of financial leadership experience in media and business. She was responsible for overseeing NPR’s financial operations, including ensuring the integrity of accounting processes, internal controls, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, treasury operations, planning and analysis. Prior to joining NPR, Ms. Cowan served as the Senior Vice President of Finance at Radio One, Inc. In addition to managing the financial and accounting operations at Radio One, Ms. Cowan was part of the senior leadership team that evolved the financial and operational structure and systems that helped grow the organization (through acquisitions as well as organically) and handled many complex strategic and financial issues. Prior to joining Radio One, Ms. Cowan was a financial manager with IBM for 17 years where she held several increasingly responsible CFO positions for significant divisions. Before IBM, Ms. Cowan worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers (formerly Coopers & Lybrand), performing audits for large and medium-sized nonprofit and for-profit companies. Ms. Cowan is a Certified Public Accountant and earned a BBA in Accounting from Howard University and an MBA in both Finance and International Business from Columbia Business School. She is currently a director on the board of Nature Forward, and has previously served on the boards of several non-profits. She has served on the executive committees and chaired several committees during her board service.