Governance

Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation, funded by the U.S. Congress through the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent federal government agency that oversees all U.S. civilian international media. RFA’s non-partisan Board of Directors includes leading journalists, issue experts, former officials, and scholars who are all committed to RFA’s founding principle of informing and empowering audiences living under authoritarian regimes, while holding those in power to account.

Leadership

Bay Fang, President

As President, Bay provides Radio Free Asia with leadership, vision, and mission-based strategic and operational direction. She first came to RFA as Managing Director for East Asia, overseeing the management and editorial content of RFA’s five East Asian language services. She went on to become RFA’s Executive Editor, supervising coverage across all of Asia. Prior to RFA, she began her 20-plus year career in journalism as the Beijing Bureau Chief for US News and World Report, where she won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for her story "China's Stolen Wives." She went on to cover the wars in Afghanistan (2001-2002) and Iraq (2003-2004) for US News, and then became the Diplomatic Correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Also before coming to RFA, Bay previously served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, overseeing public diplomacy and public affairs for Europe and Eurasia. Bay earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and was a visiting fellow at Oxford University and a Fulbright scholar in Hong Kong. She trained as a French chef at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and holds a brown belt in kung fu.

Board of directors

Michael J. Green

Mike Green joined RFA’s Board of Directors in September 2021 and is currently serving as chief executive officer at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. Previously, he served as senior vice president for Asia, Japan Chair, and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He also served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) from 2001 through 2005, as director for Asian affairs and as special assistant to the President for national security affairs and senior director for Asia.

Carolyn Bartholomew, Chair

Carolyn Bartholomew joined RFA’s Board of Directors in September 2021, bringing almost two decades of experience on nonprofit and corporate boards, in addition to a lifetime career of foreign policy expertise in RFA’s region and markets. Most recently, she served as a Commissioner on the Congressionally-appointed U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), for which she served as Chair five times and as Vice Chair six times. Prior to her service on the USCC, she held senior-level positions in Congress, including on key committees overseeing Asia foreign policy and funding foreign aid, and congressional leadership, as a long-time counsel, legislative director, and chief of staff. She has particular expertise in U.S.-China trade relations, security issues, and human rights, and has led efforts on the promotion of human rights and strengthening civil society in countries around the world. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, a Master of Arts in Anthropology from Duke University, and a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center. She is a member of the State Bar of California.

Michael Kempner

Michael Kempner has been on RFA’s Board of Directors since 2014. He is the Founder, President and CEO of MikeWorldWide (MWW), a public relations firm he founded in 1986. From 2010-2012 he served on the White House Council for Community Solutions. He is currently a board member of Goodwill Industries International and a Founding Board Member of ConnectOne Bancorp.

Keith Richburg

Keith Richburg joined RFA’s Board of Directors in September 2021. From 2016-2023 he was the director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. While serving as bureau chief in Beijing and Hong Kong for the Washington Post, he reported on the 1997 Hong Kong handover and the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Party Congress in Beijing in 2012. Additionally, from 2021-2023, he served as President of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club.

Shanthi Kalathil

Shanthi Kalathil joined RFA’s board in July 2022. She is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., a Senior Fellow at USC’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, and founder and principal at MDO Advisors. Previously, Kalathil served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights at the National Security Council, where she oversaw the organization of the inaugural Summit for Democracy and the development of the first U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, among other initiatives. She has also served as the senior director of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, a leading think tank exploring cross-cutting challenges to democracy like digital authoritarianism, foreign interference, information manipulation and kleptocracy. Throughout her career, she has focused on the intersection of technology, good governance, and international affairs, at organizations including the US Agency for International Development, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the World Bank. A former Hong Kong-based reporter for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Kalathil has authored and edited numerous policy and scholarly publications including Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, 2013); Developing Independent Media as an Institution of Accountable Governance (The World Bank, 2011); and (with Taylor C. Boas) Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), which was cited by Foreign Policy as one of “Ten Books To Learn How Technology Shapes the World.”

Allison Hooker

Allison Hooker joined RFA’s board in July 2022. She currently serves as senior vice president at American Global Strategies. Previously she held senior positions within the White House, serving as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the NSC and as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Korean Peninsula. Previously, she was a senior analyst for North Korea in the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 2001 to 2014 and was the 2013-2014 Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in South Korea.

James Mann

James Mann joined RFA's board in May 2024. He is a Washington-based author who has written a series of award-winning books about American foreign policy and about China. He is a former newspaper reporter, foreign correspondent, and columnist who wrote for more than twenty years for the Los Angeles Times. He is now an author-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Among his books on America's relationship with China, Mann authored The China Fantasy - a critique of the notion that trade will lead to democracy in China, and About Face:A History of America;s Curious Relationship with China. . Mann has also been a contributor to National Public Radio, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books. He was born in Albany, New York, and graduated from Harvard College. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Caroline Dexter, a retired member of the classics faculty at Howard University.

Chief officers

Kataryna DeLisle, General Counsel and Secretary

As General Counsel, Kataryna Delisle manages the overall legal affairs relating to the company’s governance, employment, global operations, and contracts, in addition to serving as Secretary to RFA’s Board of Directors.  Prior to joining RFA in May 2022, Kataryna worked for National Geographic Partners and National Geographic Society, where she held a number of positions including Assistant Chief Counsel, Assistant Chief Compliance Officer, Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel. From 2008 to 2015 Kataryna served as the Assistant General Counsel for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the independent federal agency later renamed the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). There she was the lead counsel for Voice of America (VOA) and Radio and TV Martí (OCB). She began her professional career as a video journalist at CNN. She earned her Juris Doctor at American University, Washington College of Law and her Bachelor of Science in Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She was born in Poland and is a mother of two.

Gijsbrecht deLeede, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

As Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer to RFA’s board, Gijsbrecht de Leede manages the overall financial affairs of the organization.  Gijs brings almost two decades of experience overseeing and managing financial departments of multi-million dollar nonprofits and media corporations. Prior to joining RFA, Gijs was the CFO of Children’s Defense Fund. Before that, he worked as a Controller at Experience Works Inc., where he managed a $100 million U.S. Department of Labor Senior Community Service Employment program. He previously has held senior financial positions at Atlantic Media and National Geographic Society. Gijs earned his CPA in the state of Maryland and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.