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Harper replaces Deutsch on ICANN board
ICANN’s Nominating Committee has revealed its picks for ICANN’s board of directors and it looks like they will be considerably less controversial than last year’s round.
Sarah Deutsch is leaving the board at the end of October’s annual general meeting at the conclusion of her maximum third three-year term. She is designated as North American for ICANN’s geographic diversity quotas.
She’s being replaced by Barbados-born, Berlin-based, UK-educated, Niel Harper, a security expert who runs an Estonian consulting agency.
Apparently a real citizen of the world, he nevertheless represents the Latin America and Caribbean region.
ICANN said he has been chief information security officer for the likes of Interpol and the United Nations Office for Project Services, among other roles around the world.
NomCom also announced that Kenyan tech policy expert Catherine Adeya is retaining her seat for a second three-year term.
Last year’s NomCom selection caused far more friction, with board chair Tripti Sinha publicly criticizing its members for essentially firing her vice-chair.
But the NomCom-appointed gender mix, something that often comes in for scrutiny, will clearly change this year.
The current board has five female directors out of a nominal 20 total. All five are voting members (as opposed to the four non-voting liaisons) and all five were appointed by NomCom, rather than a stakeholder group.
Obviously, Deutsch’s retirement and replacement with a male director would change that mix to a quarter of voting directors and a fifth of total directors being female, lower than the typical ICANN participant ratio.
However, one seat is currently unoccupied due to the recent death of Alan Barrett, an Address Supporting Organization appointee, and it’s not yet clear who will replace him.
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