Holly Carter

Holly Carter is the founder and executive director of BYkids, a non-profit organization that provides kids around the world with the training and equipment to make short documentaries about their lives. BYkids believes that we can understand the world’s challenges — and how to best meet them — through the personal stories of young people. The first season of five films aired nationally on Public Television on more than 170 channels in 107 markets, in 64 million American households.

Holly started her career as a journalist at The New York Times and has worked for 20 years as a journalist, editor, documentary filmmaker, fundraiser and non-profit leader.

Before founding BYkids, Holly ran the Global Film Initiative, bringing feature films from the developing world to major cultural institutions across the country.

From 1999 to 2003, she produced Media Matters, a monthly PBS magazine show about journalism and concurrently worked as a consultant for The After-School Corporation, a non-profit initiative founded by George Soros that brings quality after-school programs to New York City public schools.

In 1999, Carter co-founded North Carolina’s Full Frame Festival and before that, Carter co-produced the award-winning documentary, Margaret Sanger, about the life and times of the pioneering birth control advocate that broadcast nationally on PBS in 1998.

In 1990, Carter received a Henry Luce Scholarship and spent three years in Korea—one year working as a photographer at a Korean news magazine and two years working as a freelance journalist.

From 1985 through 1988, Carter was a journalist and editor in the Business Section of The New York Times. During her tenure, Carter was part of the team nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the 1987 stock market crash. From 1988 through 1990, Carter served as a writer and editor on the Editorial Page of The Times, for which she received numerous awards, including a Publisher’s Award.