Megan Carroll Beyer is an American journalist, activist, and life-long advocate of women’s rights and gender issues. Beyer currently serves as an advisor to a range of arts and civic organizations including Civic Nation, the American Film Institute, and the Better Angels Society.
In 1984, Beyer began her career as a reporter covering education and politics for local and national television news programs. She was a regular contributor to Tamedia newspapers in Switzerland from 2010-2013 and in the US, and her essays are found on Motherhood Movement Online, Role ReBoot the Alexandria Times, and the Huffington Post. She is a regular panelist on PBS' To the Contrary, the only national television program devoted to women's issues. She has been a frequent columnist to various publications, including the Alexandria Times and Times Community Newspapers, a chain in Northern Virginia.
Advocacy
In 2010, she founded the bilateral Swiss-U.S. project, Sisters Republics, which accelerates private market drivers to break the glass ceiling. In 2012, she led a study on behalf of the George Washington University Global Women's Initiative titled "Gender Equality in Employment: Policies and Practices in Switzerland and the U.S." The study offered a comparative analysis of gender workplace issues affecting women in Switzerland and the United States, and included original research based on a poll of more than 1,000 Swiss workers. Ms. Beyer also served as the External Relations Representative for the Swiss-based EDGE Gender Certification, a company that certifies companies achieving a global standard of gender certification.
Tenure as PCAH executive director
Beyer served as executive director of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities from 2015 to January 2017. During her tenure, the Committee co-hosted the "South by South Lawn" event at the White House, and negotiated the transition of the Committee's TurnAround Arts program to the Kennedy Center.
In April 2016, one month after President Obama’s historic visit to Havana, Beyer led a delegation of U.S. arts leaders to Cuba. The trip, coordinated with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Smithsonian Institution, resulted in an array of collaborations between U.S. and Cuban cultural agencies. In addition to a series of ten bilateral meetings between U.S. and Cuban cultural officials, U.S. artists and art leaders visited Cuban schools, studios, theaters and historic institutions. Some of America’s most iconic artists participated in these visits, including Usher, Smokey Robinson, Kal Penn, Joshua Bell, Alfre Woodard, Dave Matthews, John Guare, John Lloyd Young and others. The final day, the delegation publicly announced agreement on six collaborations, the first government-to-government agreement following Obama's extended hand of friendship to the Cuban people at the Grand Teatro in Havana.
Arts outreach to under-performing schools
A program called "Turnaround Arts," funded mostly by donations from businesses and private foundations with support from government sources, sought to help some of the worst-performing schools in America. Big-name stars such as Elton John, Yo Yo Ma and Cameron Diaz united to help failing pupils across the United States. An independent study showed scores increased at targeted school by 23% in math and a 13% in reading in three years.
Report to the president
Beyer presented the 2009-16 PCAH report to the White House, summarizing accomplishments of the Obama administration's contributions to expanding cultural activities in the United States.
Awards and past community service
Over the past 25 years Beyer has served on more than a dozen of national, state and local boards. She served as Finance Chair on the Virginia State Board for Community Colleges; on the board of the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education; as a trustee of Washington's public television station, WETA-TV; and on the national board of Reading Is Fundamental. She held leadership positions with the Barack Obama presidential campaign, including as Mid Atlantic finance chair for Women for Obama; as a member of the leadership committee of Women for Obama in Virginia; as a member of the National Finance Committee; and as co-chair of the National Women's Leadership Initiative Conference; and as Chair of the Women's Leadership Forum at the Democratic National Committee. Beyer received two Emmy nominations and a Virginia Associated Press award for her work at WTVR in Richmond. In May 2008, she was commencement speaker at Blue Ridge Community College. Her lifelong involvement in civic affairs includes service on the boards of the Virginia-Israel Commission; the Woodlawn Plantation; the Athenaeum, an historic property in Alexandria, Virginia; Prevent Blindness Mid-Atlantic; the Medical Care for Children Partnership, a project in Fairfax County, Virginia; the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts; the Richmond Ballet; and Theatre IV, a stage production company in Richmond. In 1996, Beyer co-chaired, with Lynda Johnson Robb, Every Child by Two, a project to immunize children in Virginia. She has been active in NARAL at the state and national levels, and in 2006 was honorary co-chair of NARAL's national fundraiser. Ms. Beyer spoke at the United Nations World Economic Ideas Sessions on gender equality, participated in the Geena Davis Gender in the Media panel on Women in Film, and served on a US Institute of Peace panel on gender issues in the Middle East. She spoke at the 2014 Obama White House Summit on Working Families.
Current activities
Beyer currently serves as an advisor to a range of arts and civic organizations including Civic Nation, the American Film Institute, and the Better Angels Society. She serves on the board of the Wilson Center's Women and Public Service Project, the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media, the Library of Congress, The John W. Kluge Center Advisory Group, and Meridian International. She is a member of the International Women's Forum, is an advisory board member of Equal AI, and was appointed by the Virginia governor to serve on the Virginia Humanities Board. She is a partner in several real estate ventures and holds an interest in the Beyer Automotive Group with dealerships in Alexandria, Falls Church and Dulles.
Personal life
Beyer resides in Old Town, Alexandria, VA, with her husband, Congressman Don Beyer. She is the mother of Clara and Grace, and stepmother of Stephanie Beyer Kirby and Don Beyer III.
