Henry Becton, Jr. is President of the WGBH Educational Foundation, Boston's public broadcaster, a position he has held since 1984. WGBH is the leading producer of programs for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), a major supplier of public radio programs, and a pioneer in educational, interactive media and access technologies.

Becton is responsible for WGBH’s six local television and radio broadcast operations, in addition to WGBH’s national production activity. WGBH programs comprise more than a third of the PBS prime-time schedule, reaching an estimated audience of 35 million people per week nationwide. WGBH creates more than a third of the Web content at pbs.org, the most-visited dot.org site on the Internet.
The Boston public broadcaster also invented the captioning and descriptive video services that make television, feature films, and home videos accessible to the 36 million Americans with hearing or vision loss.

Under Becton’s leadership, WGBH has provided some of television and radio's best known programming, including Africans in America, American Experience, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Between the Lions, Championship Ballroom Dancing, Evening at Pops, An Evening of Championship Skating, From The Top, ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre, Frontline, Mystery!, The New Yankee Workshop, Nova, Says You!, Sound & Spirit, This Old House, The Victory Garden, Vietnam: A Television History, Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?, and The World. WGBH reflects the needs and interests of local audiences with such television programs as Greater Boston, Greater Boston Arts, La Plaza, and Basic Black and such arts and culture radio favorites as Classics in the Morning, Jazz with Eric in the Evening, and The Folk Heritage.

These and other productions have been awarded every major honor for broadcasting excellence: national and international Emmys, George Foster Peabody Awards, Clarion Awards, Ohio State Awards, George Polk Awards, duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards, and honors from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Action for Children's Television, including two Oscars.

In 2002, Becton accepted a special Institutional Peabody Award in recognition of WGBH's 50th anniversary. In 1996, Becton accepted the Outstanding Achievement Award on behalf of WGBH from the Banff International Television Festival. He received the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Commonwealth Award for Institutional Leadership in 1995, and was honored in 1993 with an international Emmy, the Directorate Award, from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' International Council for his contributions to international broadcasting. In 1991 he accepted the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Masterpiece Theatre’s 20th anniversary.

Becton serves on various public broadcasting policy committees. He is a former member of the PBS Board of Directors and a founding director of the independent production company that produces the PBS series POV. He is a Trustee of American Public Television, a Director of Public Radio International, and a member of the Board of Governors of the Banff International Television Foundation. He is President of the Concord Academy Board of Trustees, co-chair of the Board of Visitors of the Dimock Community Health Center; serves on the Dean’s Council of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education; and is a Trustee of the New England Aquarium and the Boston Museum of Science. Past associations include an Overseer of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications, the Boston Ballet, the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston, the Massachusetts Cultural Alliance, the Massachusetts Committee Against Child Abuse, Connecticut College, the Ethics Resource Center, and the Board of Governors of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, New England Chapter.

Becton joined WGBH in 1970 as a producer. In 1974 he became Program Manager for Cultural Affairs, and in 1978 he was appointed Vice President and General Manager. 

Becton holds a JD degree cum laude from Harvard University, where he began his filmmaking career. In 1965, he graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, earning his undergraduate degree in American Studies. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and served as Chairman of the Yale Broadcasting Corporation. 

Becton, 58, and his wife Jeannie have three children and live in Concord, Massachusetts.