As President, Bay provides Radio Free Asia with leadership, vision, and mission-based strategic and operational direction. She first came to RFA as Managing Director for East Asia, overseeing the management and editorial content of RFA’s five East Asian language services. She went on to become RFA’s Executive Editor, supervising coverage across all of Asia.
Prior to RFA, she began her 20-plus year career in journalism as the Beijing Bureau Chief for US News and World Report, where she won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for her story "China's Stolen Wives." She went on to cover the wars in Afghanistan (2001-2002) and Iraq (2003-2004) for US News, and then became the Diplomatic Correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Also before coming to RFA, Bay previously served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, overseeing public diplomacy and public affairs for Europe and Eurasia.
Bay earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and was a visiting fellow at Oxford University and a Fulbright scholar in Hong Kong. She trained as a French chef at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and holds a brown belt in kung fu.