At the General Assembly on 27 October 2020 the Full Members of FIAT/IFTA have elected Brecht Declercq (meemoo, Belgium) as the new FIAT/IFTA President for the next two years.

Brecht DECLERCQ (1981) is the Digitisation and Acquisition Manager at meemoo – The Flemish Institute for Archiving. As such, he is responsible for the preservation strategy of the Flemish audiovisual heritage, including one of the largest audiovisual digitisation programmes worldwide. He worked for the Belgian public broadcaster VRT for almost 10 years as a radio archivist and project lead in several digitisation, media asset management and access projects. In 2014 he was elected into the FIAT/IFTA Executive Council during the World Conference in Amsterdam. From 2016 until 2019 he lead the FIAT/IFTA Preservation and Migration Commission and from 2017 until 2020 he acted as the FIAT/IFTA General Secretary. Brecht Declercq is an active voice in the international audiovisual archives world and a frequent presenter, writer and reviewer. He advises to the Flemish ministry of Culture and to several audiovisual archives and media organisations globally.

Furthermore the members also have chosen six new members of the Executive Council:

• Laurent Boch of RAI in Italy
• Theo Mäusli of SRG-SSR in Switzerland
• Bríd Dooley of RTÉ in Ireland
• Dorothy Donnan of Al Arabiya in the United Arab Emirates
• Patrick Monette of CBC-Radio Canada in Canada
• Paolo Pagliero of RAI in Italy

 
In principle these members will serve on the Executive Council until 2024. After the General Assembly, the Executive Council at its first deliberations decided to nominate in the following roles:

• Delphine Wibaux of INA in France as Vice-President and Membership Secretary
• Virginia Bazán-Gil of RTVE in Spain as General Secretary
• Bríd Dooley of RTÉ in Ireland as Sponsors and Partners Coordinator

 
Also, the Executive Council decided to co-opt the two Commission Chairs that were not already amongst the elected Executive Council members:

• Maria Drabczyk of FINA in Poland as the Chair of the Value, Use and Copyright Commission
• Vicky Plaine of the BBC in Scotland as the Chair of the Media Management Commission

 
Together with the President and the other members elected at the General Assembly in October 2018 in Venice, the Executive Council now consists of:

• Brecht Declercq of meemoo in Belgium
• Virginia Bazán Gil of RTVE in Spain
• Delphine Wibaux of INA in France
• Bríd Dooley of RTÉ in Ireland
• Tom De Smet of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in the Netherlands
• Dorothy Donnan of Al Arabiya in the United Arab Emirates
• Eva-Lis Green of the National Library in Sweden
• Herbert Hayduck of ORF in Austria
• Theo Mäusli of SRG-SSR in Switzerland
• Maria Drabczyk of FINA in Poland
• Vicky Plaine of BBC in Scotland
• Patrick Monette of CBC-Radio Canada in Canada
• Paolo Pagliero of RAI in Italy

 
You can read more about the Executive Council’s role here. The Executive Council also thanks the members who have left for their commitment on the Council:

• Jacqui Gupta of BBC in the UK
• Rita Marques of TV Cultura in Brazil
• Giorgio Balocco of RAI in Italy