UNC ‘s Center for Media Law and Policy will host the 2026 Wade H. Hargrove Media Law and Policy Colloquium on Monday, April 6, featuring Kevin Martin, vice president and head of global policy at Meta and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The event is free and open to the public. 

This year’s colloquium, “The Regulator’s Dilemma: Innovation and Global Competition,” will run from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Paul J. Rizzo Conference Center, 130 DuBose Home Lane, Chapel Hill, N.C. The event will explore how regulators and industry leaders can respond to rapid technological change while fostering innovation and maintaining competitiveness in an increasingly global media and communications marketplace. 

David Ardia, faculty co-director of the Center for Media Law and Policy, says that “Kevin Martin is uniquely positioned to speak to the pressures facing regulators today. Having served at the highest levels of government and now leading global policy at one of the world’s largest technology companies, he understands firsthand the difficult tradeoffs between regulation, innovation, and global competition.” 

Martin brings a rare dual perspective to the topic: he spent nearly a decade as a federal regulator before moving to one of the world’s largest technology companies. He currently leads Meta’s global policy work on privacy, connectivity, trade, and other issues. He previously served as the company’s vice president for U.S. public policy, and before that, as chairman (2005-2009) and commissioner (2001-2005) of the Federal Communications Commission. He later served as a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute’s Communications and Society Program and as a partner at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs LLP. 

Martin holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.P.P. from Duke University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. 

The Hargrove Colloquium was established in 2009 to honor Wade Hargrove, a graduate of Carolina Law and UNC Chapel Hill, and to provide a forum for discussion of media law and policy. It was funded in part by Hearst Communications, the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters, and the North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association in recognition of Hargrove’s more than 30 years of service to those organizations and to media and technology companies across North Carolina and the nation. Past speakers have included top executives from Hearst Television, Disney|ABC Television, and Comcast Corp., and the event has been televised by C-SPAN and UNC-TV.