ITU Plenipotentiary Conference elects new leadership team

International Telecommunication Union’s Plenipotentiary Conference has elected its new leadership team for the next four years. The team’s mandate began on 1 January 2015.

Mr Zhao (centre) becomes the 19th Secretary-General of the ITU, the United Nations agency responsible for information and communication technologies (ICTs).  Malcolm Johnson was elected Deputy Secretary-General with François Rancy the Director of the ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau and Chaesub Lee the Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. Brahima Sanou was elected Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau.

Mr Zhao graduated from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications and holds an MSc in Telematics from the University of Essex in the UK. He joined the ITU in 1986 in the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) and rose to its Director before becoming ITU Deputy Secretary-General in 2007.

Prior to joining the ITU, he served as an engineer in the Designing Institute of the Ministry of

Posts and Telecommunications of China, taking an active role in his country’s progress on telecommunication standards and national plans, as well as participating in the ITU’s technical Study Group meetings as a Chinese delegate.