London (England) -- Vincent Baby of Thomson Reuters has been elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Press and Telecommunications Council (IPTC), succeeding Stéphane Guérillot of Agence France-Presse, the IPTC announced Wednesday following its 46th annual general meeting held in Berlin.

"IPTC holds a very special place at the crossroads of journalism and technology. Its standards and expertise are essential to the seamless interchange and user experience of news throughout the media industry", said Baby. "It is a privilege to chair such an organisation and to follow in the footsteps of Stéphane Guérillot, who has led it with distinction for the past six years."

Baby, 47, is Vice President, Media Asset Owner at Thomson Reuters, where he manages media content and technology assets. Before joining the company in 2005, he worked as a correspondent and desk editor for Agence France-Presse from 1985 to 2000 and as a content and marketing executive for CNET Networks from 2000 to 2004.

During the annual general meeting, Andreas Gebhard, 35, Managing Editor at Getty Images, was elected to the IPTC Board for the first time, directors representing Agence France-Presse, dpa, Keystone, Korea Press Foundation and Thomson Reuters were re-elected. The position of Chairman of the Board is non-executive and renewable annually.

About the IPTC:
The IPTC, based in London, UK, is a consortium of the world's major news agencies, news publishers and news industry vendors. It develops and maintains technical standards for improved news exchange that are used by virtually every major news organisation in the world.
Information on all IPTC standards such  the family of G2-Standards - NewsML-G2, EventsML-G2 and SportsML-G2 -, NewsML 1, NITF, IIM, as the Photo Metadata standards, and the NewsCodes together with a list of existing members and information on how to join is available at www.iptc.org