Libby Liu, President
As president, Ms. Liu provides strategic and operational direction to meet RFA’s mission of providing balanced, objective news to listeners in East Asian countries where such news is unavailable. In addition to directing editorial and administrative policies and procedures, she coordinates issues in these areas with the BBG, the International Broadcasting Bureau, and other associated entities.
Ms. Liu served previously as vice president for administration and finance, from 2003-05.
As president, Ms. Liu’s responsibilities include ensuring the highest quality administrative and technical support to the editorial staff. In this capacity, she works to facilitate effective, timely communication and broad-based collaboration among all divisions and bureaus.
Prior to joining RFA, she served as director of administration and strategic planning at the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where she played a pivotal role in implementing the NAACP’s Five-Year Strategic Plan Goals and Objectives.
Earlier, she served as director of human resources with the high-tech firm Spyrus Inc. based in San Jose, Calif., and as assistant district attorney in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, where she prosecuted felonies.
Ms. Liu's earlier positions in private practice—at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco and at Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn in New York—focused on labor and employment law. From 1986-1989, Ms. Liu was a senior consultant at Coopers & Lybrand, now Price Waterhouse Coopers, in Washington, DC.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California-Berkeley, an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.
A California native, Ms. Liu is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and she has traveled widely in East Asia.
Dan Southerland Vice President of Programming and Executive Editor
Dan Southerland was appointed vice president and executive editor in 1996, with primary responsibility for all editorial operations. He has oversight of nine broadcast services as well as the award-winning Web site.
Mr. Southerland oversees all day-to-day newsgathering and broadcasting by RFA services and is chiefly responsible for all long-term editorial projects, planning, and quality control. He also oversees all editorial-related personnel and operational matters.
Prior to joining RFA, Mr. Southerland spent 18 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia and is recognized as one of America’s most respected reporters on Asian affairs. He was The Washington Post’s bureau chief in Beijing from 1985-90, where he covered China’s economic reforms, political developments, human rights, and the Tiananmen Square uprising in June 1989. He also covered business and energy issues for The Washington Post’s financial section.
Mr. Southerland worked previously for 13 years with The Christian Science Monitor, based in Saigon, Hong Kong, and Washington, D.C, covering the Vietnam War, conflicts in Laos and Cambodia, the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, and the fall of Saigon.
In Washington, he was the Monitor’s diplomatic correspondent. In that role, Mr. Southerland covered five secretaries of state and traveled to more than 40 countries. He also reported for United Press International while living in Asia and covered the India-Pakistan War in 1971.
In 1995, Mr. Southerland was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for distinguished diplomatic reporting for a series on the Mao years in China. Other honors include a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1990 for his coverage of Tiananmen, and an Edward R. Murrow Press Fellowship in 1990-91.
He holds a B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina, an M.S. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University. He studied the Chinese and Japanese languages at Harvard.
Mr. Southerland has a working-level knowledge of several Asian languages, including Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese. He has worked in all of RFA’s target countries except North Korea and has reported extensively from South Korea.
News Service Directors
Each of our nine news services has a director who is responsible for its editorial operations.
