Peter High
9-25-2014
Excerpt from the Article:
André Mendes started working at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) as CIO in late 2009. In doing so, he joined a global multimedia organization and, like other businesses in that field, technology was and continues to be central to the mission of the organization.
The BBG is an independent federal government agency that oversees all U.S. civilian international broadcasting. The networks—the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Martí, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks’ Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa—serve as indispensable sources of news for people who often lack access to independent information. They inform, engage and connect with international audiences across television, radio, Internet, and mobile devices in 59 languages and in more than 100 countries.
As CIO, Mendes managed or was involved in content acquisition of video, audio, text and images from all over the world to the management, packaging and distribution of that content, which is front and center in fulfilling the organization’s charter. Because of its longstanding history and the countries and populations that it targets, the Broadcasting Board of Governors actually operates the most diverse media distribution network in the world. It operates the largest shortwave radio stations on the planet, utilizes some of the most powerful AM transmitters ever made, has an extensive network of FM installations, and utilizes dozens of satellites for TV, radio and data transmissions. It also operates hundreds of Websites, social media destinations, SMS and Twitter feeds, and the largest Internet anti-censorship operation in the world.
Partially due to the efforts of Mendes and his team, 2013 was one of the most successful years for the BBG. Its broadcasts reached a record 206 million people every week, up 41 million from 2010. Mendes was rewarded for his work as CIO by being promoted to director of global operations, the de facto COO. He attained this lofty position, in part, by approaching his CIO role as a business executive and not feeling constrained by the traditional definition of what it means to be a CIO.
CIO Insight: You joined the Broadcasting Board of Governors as CIO, director of technology, services and innovation. This position appears to involve a great number of responsibilities. How did you compartmentalize your time between the different functions suggested in your title?
André Mendes: My duties comprised all of the technology infrastructure and global content distribution for the agency. Although it encompasses many disciplines, they are intimately related as part and parcel of the creation of a concept I call “content supply chain management,” which looks at and manages these diverse areas as part of a large, highly integrated “manufacturing” environment where raw content is acquired, formatted, assembled, packaged and distributed through our very diverse ways of reaching our audience.
CIO Insight: Can you give some examples of innovation that your team produced for the BBG?
Innovation is highly dependent on the environment in which one is operating. At the BBG, innovation meant leapfrogging from a chaotic IT infrastructure that belonged to sometime in the early 1990s to a highly virtualized environment that leverages cloud-based services everywhere it can. It meant turbocharging a small Internet anti-censorship effort into a multi-vendor engine that accommodates billions of hits on a daily basis from some of the most restrictive environments in the world. It also consisted of leveraging new and better ways to leverage satellites and a new global MPLS network into a much cheaper distribution network.
CIO Insight: In January of this year, you were promoted to director, global operations. Please describe your new responsibilities.
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