Gayathry Venkiteswaran is the Executive Director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, a network representing media freedom groups in the region. She has held the position since December 2010. She leads the Secretariat based in Bangkok and her responsibilities include overall management, fundraising and leading on the programs related to legal reforms and network strengthening. Before this, she was Executive Director of the Centre for Independent Journalism, a not-for-profit organization dedicated towards advancing media freedom and people’s access to information in Malaysia. During her tenure in CIJ, she conducted training on journalism and ethics, media literacy for the public and workshops on freedom of information. She was part of a team that produced the Free Press, Free People manual for training of civil society groups in Malaysia. She has worked as a journalist and has also taught journalism, media history and law, international communication and introduction to communication in three Malaysian institutions of higher learning. She has an MA International Relations from the Australian National University and a Bachelor in Mass Communication from Universiti Sains Malaysia. She co-authored a chapter entitled Sexing the Internet: Censorship, Surveillance and the Body Politic(s) of Malaysia for the book Access Contested (2011) and co-authored a chapter entitled Civil society use of media and ICT: A case study of SOS Selangor Campaign in the book Media, Culture and Society in Malaysia (2011).