At the time of its inception in 1835, Agence France-Presse broke new ground as the only international news agency in the world, and is still one of the largest. But it took a lot of tinkering to ensure the company would survive.
Today, the news agency employs almost 3,000 journalists on a permanent basis and more in a freelance capacity. Agence France-Presse employs staff in more than 160 countries around the world. It broadcasts news through a variety of mediums, an area in which Hoog is particularly interested to keep the agency up to date.
When Agence France-Presse’s previous chief executive, Pierre Loutte, moved on from the agency in 2010, it was decided that Emmanuel Hoog would be the best fit for the role. Hoog was born in September 1962 and has had an impressive career since graduating from France’s prestigious National School of Administration in 1988 and, later, the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
In his most recent role before joining Agence France-Presse, Hoog headed France’s National Audiovisual Institute as CEO, leading a large-scale project to transfer multimedia into digital format and also worked on the creation of publicising a number of multimedia archives via the internet. Other work in Hoog’s earlier career also helped to prepare him for his current position. Shortly after graduation, Hoog worked for France’s Ministry of Culture and Communication and he has also worked as an adviser to politician Laurent Fabius, concentrating on media and culture. Emmanuel Hoog has also received a number of prestigious awards outside of his working life, including being selected as Chairman to Paris’s House of Poetry, the French Legion of Honour, and the Chevalier of the Order of Merit.
Hoog has worked to implement many of his ambitions for Agence France-Presse in a relatively short time. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, conducted one year into the role, Hoog described his plans for the international news agency, largely focusing on ensuring that Agence France-Presse becomes a “true multimedia corporation.” Achievable by increasing the amount of multimedia news sources that it has available through plans such as increasing the amount of high definition internet videos to three times the amount that it produced in 2011. Hoog also ensures that his news agency makes use of all forms of social media. When it comes to the question of whether a larger workforce would be required to implement his objectives, Hoog told the Wall Street Journal, “the staff we have is enough, they just need new training.” Examples of how the CEO has ensured that the news is available to a wide audience through a range of multimedia, include his 2011 launch of the agency’s iPad application, the first international news agency iPad application to be available in Spanish and Portuguese.