Mary G. F. Bitterman

Bitterman became president of The Bernard Osher Foundation in 2004 and has led its support for higher education and the arts, which includes cultural exhibitions and performances, as well as postsecondary scholarships. It also targets programs in integrative medicine in the United States and Sweden. In 2005, the foundation began emphasizing scholarships for returning students who are pursuing baccalaureate degrees at colleges and universities. The Foundation also sponsors a national network of lifelong learning programs for seniors, called the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes, on 124 campuses across the United States.

From 1993 to 2002 she was president and CEO of the primary PBS affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, station KQED. In 2002, Bitterman was named president and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation. In that same year, she became a member of the PBS board of directors and was board chairman from 2005 to 2007. She is credited with overseeing the establishment of the PBS Endowment Fund and she "grew the Foundation into a robust operation that raised a record-setting $51 million last year [2019]."

As the 15th Director of Voice of America (VOA), she was the youngest person to hold that position and the first woman to do so. She remained in that position from 1980 to 1981 and during that time, Iran was still holding 52 Americans hostages and there was a resurgence of state-sponsored jamming of Western international broadcasters, including VOA. According to the VOA website, she made an impact on several levels.

Early in her career, Bitterman produced documentaries for public television and has written about the development of telecommunications and the role of media in developing societies around the world. She was named director of Hawaii Public Broadcasting Authority in 1974 at the age of 30, the youngest individual and the first woman to head a PBS television station.

Mary G. F. Bitterman (born 1944) is an American historian and former media executive who is president of The Bernard Osher Foundation, a philanthropy that supports higher education and the arts. She is a former director of the Voice of America and was the youngest person and the first female to hold that position.

Bitterman received her B.A. from Santa Clara University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern European History from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She married Morton Edward Bitterman (1921–2011) and has three daughters.