New management team takes helm at UN tech agency

Elected officials lead ITU’s work on radiocommunication, technical standardization, and digital development

​​​​The new senior leadership team​ of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) took office on 1 January 2023.

The team includes experienced ITU officials and leaders from industry. Together they will bring the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies into its next era of connecting the world, with particular emphasis on reaching the billions of people that remain offline.

At the beginning of the year, Doreen Bogdan-Martin became ITU’s 12^th Secretary-General since it was designated a UN specialized agency in 1947. She is also the first woman to head the organization since its establishment in 1865.

Member States elected Bogdan-Martin as Secretary-General in September at ITU’s Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) in Bucharest, Romania. She comes to the post from ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, where she had served as director since 2019.

“The world is facing significant challenges – escalating conflicts, a climate crisis, food security, gender inequalities, and 2.7 billion people with no access to the Internet,” said Bogdan-Martin upon her election. “I believe we, the ITU and our members, have an opportunity to make a transformational contribution. Continuous innovation can and will be a key enabler to facilitate resolution of many of these issues.”

Working together as One ITU

• Tomas Lamanauskas has joined ITU’s new leadership team as Deputy Secretary-General, a key executive role that assists the Secretary-General in managing the organization.
• Mario Maniewicz has begun his second term as Director of ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau, which oversees the ITU Radio Regulations, the international treaty on radio spectrum use, satellite radiofrequency coordination, and related technical standards.
• Seizo Onoe has assumed the role of Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, which is responsible for convening representatives from governments, private companies, and experts from around the world to develop internationally agreed technical standards.
• Cosmas Zavazava has taken over as Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, responsible for mobilizing global efforts to connect the billions of people who today remain offline.

All five senior officials were elected to four-year terms.

The new team takes over from ITU’s 11^th Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao, Former Deputy Secretary-General Malcolm Johnson, and former Telecommunication Standardization Director Chaesub Lee.