WVTF names Renai Bodley as chief advancement officer
Renai Bodley will join WVTF Public Radio and RADIO IQ this summer as the station’s first chief advancement officer.
In this role, she will oversee all fundraising activities with a special emphasis on major gifts and grants. Bodley will leave her current position as president and general manager of KPCW Radio in Park City, Utah, in May.
Bodley is a Roanoke native and a broadcast and journalism professional with more than 30 years of experience. Most recently, Bodley expanded KPCW's staff by 25 percent, helped launch the station's daily newsletter, and was instrumental in growing KPCW's digital audience. During her leadership, KPCW's membership increased more than 300 percent, in part by expanding the Broadcasters Club – a group of donors who give $1,000 or more a year to KPCW.
“From the first time I met Renai at a national meeting, it was clear that she had a love of her hometown of Roanoke and a dedication to the mission of public broadcasting. We are excited that she has chosen to bring her talents back home to help support our network of stations and to make our community service even stronger,” WVTF General Manager Roger Duvall said.
WVTF provides two streams of radio programming that cover 65 percent of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The WVTF Music stream is a mix of classical, jazz, and Americana music heard on 11 frequencies around the region while the 13 RADIO IQ news stations air programing from NPR, the BBC, and American Public Media. With a broadcast center in Roanoke, WVTF and RADIO IQ are a community service of Virginia Tech. WVTF celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.
Bodley launched her career as a television newscast producer in Roanoke. She has worked in Richmond, Miami, and Washington, D.C., where she developed and produced a two-hour newscast called “The Rush Hour Report” for News Channel 8.
In 1996, Bodley moved to Salt Lake City to be the executive producer at KSTU Fox 13. Later she was promoted to vice president/news director and quadrupled the station’s daily news coverage. In 2015, Bodley briefly retired, but the call of the newsroom was too strong to resist. A month later, she signed on with KPCW as a reporter, and in June 2017, Bodley was named president and general manager.
Bodley is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and the Radio Television Digital News Association. She has degrees in English language and literature from the University of Virginia. She was an inaugural fellow of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Journalism in 1998 and was a founding board member of the Utah Debate Commission.
