The Voice of America's first organizational home was the U.S. Foreign Information Service, which later became the overseas branch of the Office of War Information. FIS' first director was Robert E. Sherwood; Joseph Barnes was his deputy and chief of the New York Office.
John Houseman, VOA's first Director: 1942-1943
| John Houseman | February 1942 - July 1943 |
| Louis G. Cowan | August 1943 - August 1945 |
| John Ogilvie | September 1945 - January 1946 |
| Charles Thayer | January 1948 - October 1949 |
| Foy David Kohler | October 1949 - September 1952 |
| Alfred Morton | October 1952 - April 1953 |
| Leonard Erikson | July 1953 - April 1954 |
| John R. Poppele | May 1954 - July 1956 |
| Robert E. Burton | July 1956 - July 1958 |
| Henry Loomis | July 1958 - March 1965 |
| John Chancellor | August 1965 - June 1967 |
| John Charles Daly | September 1967 - June 1968 |
| Kenneth R. Giddens | December 1982 - September 1984 |
| R. Peter Straus | July 1977 - October 1979 |
| Mary Bitterman | February 4, 1980 - January 20, 1981 |
| James Conkling | August 1981 - March 1982 |
| John Hughes | March 1982 - August 1982 |
| Kenneth Tomlinson | December 1982 - September 1984 |
| Gene Pell | June 1985 - October 1985 |
| Richard W. Carlson | November 1986 - September 1991 |
| Chase Untermeyer | August 26, 1991 - January 20, 1993 |
| Geoffrey Cowan | March 1994 - November 1996 |
| Evelyn S. Lieberman | March 1997 - May 1, 1999 |
| Sanford J. Ungar | June 23, 1999 - June 29, 2001 |
| Robert R. Reilly | October 12, 2001 - August 29, 2002 |
| David S. Jackson | September 3, 2002 - October 27, 2006 |
| Dan Austin | October 29, 2006 - June 7, 2011 |
| David Ensor | June 8, 2011 - May 29, 2015 |
| Amanda Bennett | April 18, 2016 - June 16, 2020 |
| Robert Reilly | December 7, 2020 - January 21, 2021 |
To find out more about our past directors, click here.