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auDA chair racks off after just 18 months
Australian ccTLD manager auDA has lost its chair, again.
Chris Leptos quit abruptly, for undisclosed reasons, earlier this week.
He’d been in the job since November 2017, when he replaced Stuart Benjamin, who had resigned shortly before facing a no-confidence vote from members.
Leptos himself survived a similar attempted ousting last July, despite losing the “popular vote” of members.
auDA’s brief statement does not say why he’s resigned, but notably absent from the release is the usual set of boilerplate quotes talking up the successes of the departed’s tenure, which are pretty standard when a resignation is amicable.
Aussie domain blogger David Goldstein is reporting that Leptos had a disagreement about “governance issues” with CEO Cameron Boardman at a board meeting this week, which led to Leptos filing his resignation letter.
auDA has come under almost-daily criticism for the duration of Leptos’ spell in the chair. Many members are not happy with initiatives such as the registry back-end handover, the imminent release of second-level domains, and myriad general governance and transparency issues.
Leptos has been nothing if not confrontational in return.
During his tenure, a story alleging lavish spending by former directors (including one of auDA’s chief critics) was placed in the national media, and Leptos’ board referred an unspecified number to the Victoria Police.
Leptos has been replaced on an interim basis by Suzanne Ewart, an independent director, while his permanent replacement is sought.
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