April 3, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
New role: Jeanne Bourgault, 47, has been named president of Internews, a nonprofit in Arcata, Calif., that works in 40 developing countries to strengthen local news media. The group’s 2011 budget is $62-million.
Leadership structure: The appointment is part of a leadership transition the charity expects will take several years. Ms. Bourgault has assumed day-to-day management of the organization. David Hoffman, who co-founded Internews in 1982, has taken the title of chief executive and is focusing on board development. Ms. Bourgault said the division of responsibilities is intended to reduce the tension and confusion that can mark such transitions: “I do check in with him on major, major decisions to make sure he feels comfortable with them, but people know to report to me.”
Background: Ms. Bourgault has worked at Internews for 10 years, first as vice president of programs and then as chief operations officer for five years. Before that, she served for six years with the U.S. Agency for International Development and worked as a consultant helping foundations and other institutions design media-development programs in the Balkans.
Her agenda: Internews is starting the Center for Media Innovation, Research and Learning to analyze approaches that have the biggest impact on people’s lives, particularly when it comes to new digital technologies. “Sometimes there’s an overenthusiasm for the technology, when the real issue is the community,” she said. “The hardest thing to do is to engage at the community level and really do things that make a difference at that very local level.”
Education: Ms. Bourgault earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and master’s degrees in public affairs and in international studies from the University of Washington.
Salary: She declined to reveal it.
Hobbies: Cooking, especially the Georgian dishes she enjoyed while living and working in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.
