Fernandez, Alberto Miguel, 1958-

<p>Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN). MBN provides news and information in Arabic to the Middle East and North Africa. As President of MBN, Amb. Fernandez oversees and manages two television networks (Alhurra and Alhurra-Iraq); two radio streams Sawa Iraq and Sawa Levant; and all of MBN’s digital and social media properties including, Alhurra.com, RadioSawa.com, Irfaasawtak.com, AlSaha.com and MaghrebVoices.com.</p>

<p>According to international research firms such as Gallup, Alhurra and Radio Sawa have an unduplicated weekly reach of more than 25 million people in the Middle East. Sponsored by the U.S. government, MBN’s mission is to broadcast accurate, timely and relevant news and information about the region, the world and the United States to a broad, Arabic-speaking audience.</p>

<p>Prior to joining MBN, Amb. Fernandez was Vice-President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and is a member of the board of directors at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security (CCHS) at George Washington University. He is also a non-resident Fellow in Middle East Politics and Media at the TRENDS research and advisory center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.</p>

<p>He was a Foreign Service Officer from 1983 to 2015 and served as the State Department’s Coordinator for the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications from 2012 to 2015. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea and U.S. Charge d’Affaires to Sudan. He held senior public diplomacy positions at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria, Guatemala, Kuwait, and in the Department’s Near East Affairs (NEA) Bureau.</p>

<p>Amb. Fernandez was a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, he was a recipient of a 2008 Presidential Meritorious Service Award, the 2006 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, a 2003 Superior Honor Award for his work in Afghanistan, among many other awards.</p>

<p>A graduate of the University of Arizona (B.A. and M.A.) and the Defense Language Institute, he served in the U.S. Army and came to the United States as a refugee from Cuba in 1959. He has published in <i>Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal</i>, the <i>AFPC World Almanac of Islamism</i>, <i>Defense Dossier</i>, <i>Journal of International Security Affairs</i>, <i>Providence</i>, <i>WINEP Policy Brief</i>, the <i>Foreign Service Journal</i>, “Cipher Brief,” MEMRI, Brookings “Markaz,” Georgetown Cornerstone, <i>ReVista: the Harvard Review of Latin America</i>, <i>Middle East Quarterly</i>, the <i>Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society (JAAS)</i>, and lectured and debated on U.S. foreign policy in numerous international and academic venues. He speaks fluent Spanish and Arabic in addition to English.</p>

<p>Alberto Miguel Fernandez (born 1958) is a Cuban-American former diplomat who is currently President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), which includes Alhurra.</p>

<p>Fernandez was previously vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow in Middle East Politics and Media at the TRENDS research and advisory center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates He is also on the Board of Advisors of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and the Philos Project.</p>

<p>He was the Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. from March 2012 to February 2015. CSCC was set up in September 2011 by White House Executive Order 13584 to combat the propaganda of Al-Qaida, its allies and adherents. He was US Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, Africa's third largest oil producer and only Spanish speaking country, from January 2010. Before that he was Chargé d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan from 2007 to 2009. In Sudan, he worked to maintain the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Accords between the NCP government and the rebels of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) and to bring humanitarian relief to war-torn Darfur.</p>

<p>Fernandez was the director of the office of press and public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the United States Department of State from August 2005 to May 2007. As one of the few to speak fluent Arabic at the U.S. State Department, he was the mouthpiece for U.S. policy in the Middle East. A Newsweek profile started that he gave an average of about 200 interviews a year.</p>

<p>Fernandez has also served in senior US embassy positions, as Counselor for Public Affairs, in Kabul, Amman, Guatemala City, and Damascus. Earlier in his career, he served at the US Embassy in Kuwait (Public Affairs Officer), Managua (Press Attache and Spokesman), Santo Domingo (Director of the Dominican American Cultural Institute, ICDA), and Abu Dhabi.</p>

<p>Fernandez is a recipient of a Presidential Meritorious Service Award for 2008, the State Department's 2006 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, a Superior Honor Award in 2003 for his work in Afghanistan, and the 1996 Linguist of the Year Award, among many others. He has written for the Foreign Service Journal, MEMRI, Journal of International Security Affairs, The Cipher Brief, AFPC Almanac of Islamism, <i>Washington Post</i>, <i>Providence</i>, Georgetown Cornerstone, <i>Brookings Markaz</i>, Middle East Quarterly, <i>Defense Dossier</i>, ReVista the Harvard Review of Latin America, <i>University Bookman</i> and Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society. He has also lectured at numerous U.S. universities and presented papers at conferences of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD), Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), and Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID). Born in Cuba and raised in Miami, Florida, he is a graduate of the University of Arizona and Defense Language Institute. Fluent in Arabic (4/3+), Spanish (5/5) and English, is married and has two sons.</p>