Keynote Speaker: Bill Keller
The Deadline Club was privileged to host Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, as the keynote speaker for its 2009 awards dinner. Mr. Keller became the executive editor, the top newsroom position at the newspaper, in July 2003.
Before that, Mr. Keller had been an Op-Ed columnist and senior writer for The New York Times Magazine as well as other areas of the newspaper since September 2001. Previously, he served as managing editor from 1997 until September 2001 after having been the newspaper’s foreign editor from June 1995 until 1997. He was the chief of The Times bureau in Johannesburg from April 1992 until May 1995. (He is the author of “The Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela,” published in January 2008 by Kingfisher.)
Before that, Mr. Keller had been a Times correspondent in Moscow from December 1986 until October 1991, the last three years as the newspaper’s bureau chief. He won a Pulitzer Prize in March 1989 for his coverage of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Keller joined The New York Times in April 1984 as a domestic correspondent based in the Washington bureau.
Before coming to The Times, Mr. Keller had been a reporter for The Dallas Times Herald beginning in October 1982. From 1980 until 1982, he was a reporter for the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report in Washington, covering lobbyists and interest groups. He was a reporter for The Portland Oregonian from July 1970 until March 1979.
Mr. Keller graduated from Pomona College with a B.A. in 1970 and completed the Advanced Management Program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in July 2000. He is currently a member of the board of trustees of Pomona College.
Mr. Keller is married to Emma Gilbey Keller. Ms. Gilbey Keller is a writer and author of “The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from Career to Family and Back Again,” published in September, 2008 by Bloomsbury, as well as a biography of Winnie Mandela. He has three children, Tom, Molly and Alice.
