Ambassador Dougan has been a long term pioneer in expanding the horizons of media and information technology applications and access globally. For more than three decades she has served in senior strategic, communications technology, and foreign policy leadership positions in industry and government including appointments by three U.S. Presidents (Republican and Democrat) in full Senate confirmed positions. She is a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Chairman of Cyber Century Forum and serves on a diversity of boards and international strategic advisory positions.
As the first statutory U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy and administratively as Assistant Secretary of State during the Reagan years, Ambassador Dougan oversaw international telecom, broadcast and IT policy interests including coordinating treaty negotiations involving over a dozen U.S. federal agencies. With bipartisan support from Congress, she spearheaded a wide range of liberalizing international policy advances significantly expanding telecom, media and IT access in developing as well as industrialized countries. In the private sector Ambassador Dougan has launched a wide range of multi-country, multi-industry initiatives including founding the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC) with the World Bank and co-founding the Center for Information Infrastructure and Economic Development (CIIED) under the auspices of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing.
At age 23 Dougan was the first CATV Marketing Director and youngest executive at Time Inc. (now Time Warner). During her six years as a Director of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting she played an active role in early funding and programmatic expansion of PBS and NPR. Ambassador Dougan was co-founder of the International Media Fund, Chairman of the Christian Science Monitor TV Editorial Board, and on the founding committee of the Sundance Institute. She is also an award winning television producer including the PBS Christmas special, The Nutcracker and the unprecedented PBS/NPR special: The MX Debate with Bill Moyers for which she won the prestigious Peabody for "excellence in broadcast journalism." Current productions include the upcoming YEAR OF THE AMBASSADOR (on US China relations) and as Executive Producer of HEALING SPACES WITHIN (working title) series based on the recent PBS special THE SCIENCE OF HEALING. As a partner in Impact Partner, recent productions include THE COVE (2010 Oscar winner for "Best Documentary").
Ambassador Dougan's opinion articles have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor among others and books include Climbing the Great Wall of E-Commerce(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) and Arab & Muslim Countries: Profiles in Contrast(Brookings Institute Press). She has been honored by many awards for her public service. She is also an honorary citizen of The Republic of Korea and has been accorded both personal and permanent rank of Ambassador.
AMBASSADORIAL POST(S)
International Communications and Information Policy, (1983 - 1988)
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Information Technology - Planning
Public Affairs - Media