A business leader experienced in media and international markets, Dawn L. McCall took over as coordinator of the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs on July 28, 2010. The Bureau is the main propaganda arm of the U.S. Government, responsible for producing and distributing information about the United States to an international audience.

 

McCall holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism, advertising and public relations from the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia, from which she graduated in 1976. She volunteered to work for Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign and was eventually assigned to recruit Hollywood celebrities to support Carter.

 

When Carter won the 1976 election, McCall was rewarded with a position as assistant administrator in public communications for the Small Business Administration.

 

After Carter was voted out of office, McCall worked for a cable TV company trying to win franchises in cableless cities. In 1981, she moved back home to Atlanta and took a job with the Weather Channel. Five years later, she was transferred to San Francisco.

 

In 1987, she joined the Discovery network and held several senior affiliate sales positions for the company until 1994. That year she was named senior vice president and managing director of Discovery Networks Latin America in Miami. In this position, she established Discovery’s business in Latin America and founded the region’s first trade association representing television network interests with the formation of TAP Latin America, where she also served as the organization’s first president.

 

From 1999 to 2007, McCall was president of Discovery Networks International. In this role she served on the company’s six-member executive committee responsible for running Discovery Communications, and sat on a number of boards overseeing joint-venture businesses with large global media organizations including the BBC, Alliance Atlantis and Liberty Media.

 

In 2009, she founded International Media & Entertainment Partners, LLC, an international media consultancy.

 

McCall is a former board member of The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Dawn L. McCall Official Biography (State Department)