Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation that is funded by the U.S. Government through an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent federal agency charged with overseeing all U.S. civilian international broadcasting.
Radio Free Asia’s corporate board is made up of all nine members of the BBG:
Governors Meehan and Ashe serve as our corporate board’s chair and vice-chair, respectively.
In addition to providing general oversight, the BBG serves as a firewall to protect the professional independence and integrity of all broadcasters, which include the Voice of America, Radio and TV Martí, and the non-profit corporations that are BBG grantees: Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
RFA’s corporate officers are:
To learn more about the Broadcasting Board of Governors, please visit: http://www.bbg.gov/
Biographies of the RFA Corporate Board follow.
Michael P. Meehan, Chair 
Michael P. Meehan currently serves as President of Blue Line Strategic Communications, Inc. and as Senior Vice President at Virilion, a digital media company. He also served as the first President of BGR Public Relations, LLC. For over two decades, Meehan served in senior roles for U.S. Senators John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Maria Cantwell and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and two U.S. House offices. Mr. Meehan earned a B.A. in political science from Bates College.
Meehan serves as Co-Chair of the BBG Communications and Outreach Committee, Chair of RFA's corporate board, and as a member of the Strategy and Budget Committee.
Victor H. Ashe
From 1968 until 1974, Ashe served as a Tennessee State Representative. In 1975, he was elected as State Senator and held office until 1984. Ashe served in 1967 as a staff assistant to US Sen. Howard Baker. He was executive director of the Americans Outdoors Commission, 1985-1987 chaired by Sen. Lamar Alexander (then Governor).
Five U.S. Presidents, beginning with President Ronald Reagan, have named Ashe to different federal positions. He will be the first former Ambassador and local elected official to serve on the BBG.
Ashe currently sits on the Board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Rivers Association, and is a former member of the AmeriCorps Board of Directors. He is president of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association, chair of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, both based in Knoxville, Tenn., and chair of the Douglas Henry State Museum Commission located in Nashville, Tenn.
Ambassador Ashe earned a B.A. in History from Yale University in 1967 and graduated from the College of Law at the University of Tennessee in 1974.
Ashe is a member of the Governance Committee and the Strategy and Budget Committee, serves as Corporate Board Vice Chair of Radio Free Asia (RFA), sits on the audit committees of RFA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and chairs the audit committee of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
Ashe was appointed to the board on July 2, 2010 to a term expiring on August 13, 2010. By law, any member whose term has expired may serve until a successor has been appointed and qualified.
He is married to the former Joan Plumlee and they have two children: J. Victor and Martha.
Ashe welcomes comments and views on RFA and BBG issues. He can be reached by phone at (865) 523-6573, email at vhashe@aol.com, or mail addressed to his residence at 3709 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, Tenn., 37919.
Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry 
On February 1, 2013, John Forbes Kerry became the 68th Secretary of State of the United States.
Previously, Mr. Kerry served 28 years in the United States Senate, with the last four as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
As a senator Mr. Kerry was a leader on key foreign policy and national security issues facing the United States, including nuclear nonproliferation and global climate change. Prior to chairing the committee, Mr. Kerry chaired the Asia and Middle East subcommittees where he authored and passed major legislation on international drug trafficking, international money laundering, humanitarian aid, and climate change, and he helped negotiate the agreement establishing the United Nations tribunal to prosecute war crimes in Cambodia.
Mr. Kerry is represented on the Board by Tara D. Sonenshine, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
Michael Lynton
Michael Lynton is the Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. He is the former CEO of AOL Europe and Chairman and CEO of Pearson plc's Penguin Group. Mr. Lynton is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Rand Corporation. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School and is proficient in French, German and Dutch.
Lynton serves on the BBG Strategy and Budget Committee.
Susan McCue
Susan McCue is President of Message Global, a strategic advocacy firm she founded in 2008 for social action campaigns. She was the founding President and CEO of The ONE Campaign to combat extreme global poverty and was Chief of Staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from 1999 to 2006. Before that she held numerous communications positions in government and campaigns. She is currently Vice Chair of Humanity United and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
A New Jersey native, Ms. McCue is a graduate of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., with degrees in economics and journalism.
McCue serves as Co-Chair of the BBG Communications and Outreach Committee.
Biographies of RFA’s officers to the corporate board follow.
Libby Liu, President 
Libby Liu was named president of RFA in September 2005 by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), following the retirement of RFA’s founding president Richard Richter.
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.
Norman Thompson, Treasurer
Norman Thompson brings to RFA a wealth of executive staff experience in domestic and international roles with U.S. multi-national corporations including PepsiCo, CIGNA, and Ameritech (AT&T). In addition to his role as an officer to the board, Mr. Thompson serves as RFA’s Vice President of Administration and Finance.
Bernadette Burns, Secretary
Bernadette Mooney Burns has been RFA’s General Counsel since 2006 and was elected Secretary in 2008. Her legal career started in 1981 and includes service in the U.S. Navy JAG corps, private practice, corporate counsel and most recently as the Director of Legal Affairs with the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.
