Marguerite Sullivan is senior director of the Center on International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy, a new center that aims to support and strengthen media assistance initiatives and highlight the indispensable role independent media play in the creation and development of sustainable democracies around the world. She has worked as a journalist, a communications practitioner, and an executive in government and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and has done more than a hundred trainings on issues of freedom of the press, transparency, ethics and effective and open communications. Before joining NED, she was Executive Director of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO and director of the UNESCO Affairs Office at the U.S. Department of State. She previously was vice president for communications and external affairs of the International Republican Institute, one of the NED core institutes. She began her career as journalist working for newspapers in Boston and California before moving to Washington, D.C., where she was a reporter and columnist for Copley News Service and newspapers, covering Congress and executive branch of government. She also served as president of the Washington Press Club, now the National Press Club and also was executive editor of The Washington Woman magazine. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications including The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Washingtonian magazine among others. She authored a book A Responsible Press Office: An Insider's Guide for the U.S. Department of State on media that has won a number of awards and has been translated into 30 languages. She has worked as an executive or communications director in federal and state government, including at the White House, State Department, National Endowment for Humanities and served as a member of the Cabinet of a U.S. governor. Ms. Sullivan represents the U.S. as region one representative to UNESCO's International Programme for the Development of Communication. She also is a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the U.S. National Council on the Humanities, and has served on and chaired several committees at Stanford University, where she received her master and bachelor degrees.