Sinha angry with Chapman’s firing as ICANN vice chair

ICANN chair Tripti Sinha appears to be a little pissed off that one of her fellow directors was essentially fired by the Nominating Committee, sparking a public confrontation with NomCom’s current chair.

Chris Chapman was replaced by the independent NomCom at the conclusion of his first three-year term earlier this year, which seems have prompted Sinha to voice her frustration.

Over the course of the week at ICANN 84 in Dublin, Sinha and Chapman himself have made a number of disparaging remarks about NomCom’s work, referring to it variously as “not impressive”, “disruptive” and “unpleasant”.

It has also transpired that Sinha and Chapman both abstained in protest at the October 14 board resolution that confirmed NomCom’s leadership for the 2026 round of selections.

Sinha made her first terse remark about Chapman’s departure on the stage at the welcoming ceremony at on Monday, calling it “premature”, but expanded on her comments during a meeting with the ccNSO on Tuesday and today’s open-mic public forum.

Saying she was reading out her abstention statement — censored so far by ICANN from its web site — she told the ccNSO that she was “disappointed” that the NomCom had not returned her vice chair for the second year in a row.

She said NomCom should put “board leadership experience, longevity, and continuity” as strong enough criteria when weighing its director options. She accused NomCom of “disregarding” the board’s guidance in this regard.

She alluded to her last vice chair Danko Jevtović, who was replaced in 2024 by that year’s iteration of NomCom after six years on the board.

“I abstain in protest to these decisions in back-to-back years, and implore that the NomCom re-evaluate its criteria for returning seasoned board leaders,” she concluded.

She repeated some of her comments at today’s public forum session, and backed up by former director Edmon Chung, who lost his seat after three years in 2024 due to NomCom’s selections.

But they were challenged by Tom Barrett, who was chair-elect of NomCom when Chapman was fired and was named chair earlier this month and who pointed out that the committee is independent and suggested ICANN should keep its nose out.

“I’m not going to discuss how the 2025 NomCom made its decisions, but without knowing why and how I think it is inappropriate for any board member, especially the chair, to question its due diligence or the fact that they have chosen incorrectly,” he said.

NomCom gives the board’s guidance an “enormous amount of weight”, he said, “but it is not exclusive.”

“No one that applies to the NomCom gets a golden ticket,” he said. “Reapplying candidates do not get a golden ticket, even if they have been appointed by two previous NomComs. Board leadership does not get a golden ticket even if they have been chair or vice chair.”

As for Chapman, he gave a bitter but detail-light recounting of his NomCom experience at a session with Asia-Pacific community members on Tuesday, bemoaning the fact that he wasn’t even picked for the back-up list.

“I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the accountability for NomCom,” he said, describing the circumstances surrounding his non-selection this year as “very odd” and that his interaction with NomCom “wasn’t pleasant”.

AI experts replace Chapman on ICANN board

ICANN’s Nominating Committee has announced its annual picks for the Org’s board of directors, with two new fresh faces, both of whom have notable AI policy experience, joining.

Constance Bommelaer de Leusse and Raúl Echeberría, respectively French and Uruguayan internet policy experts, are the newcomers. Australian former regulator Chris Chapman is leaving after just one three-year term.

Echeberría is perhaps the more-familiar name, having been involved with ICANN since its early days. He’s a founder and former long-time CEO of LACNIC, and has held roles in ISOC, WSIS, and the IGF. He’s also former chair of ICANN’s Number Resource Organization.

De Leusse is a French academic, raised in the US, currently employed by the Sciences Po and Ecole normale supérieure (ENS-PLS) universities in Paris. She is a former ISOC VP.

Both have AI policy experience. Echeberría earlier this year sat on the steering committee of the AI Action Summit, hosted in Paris by President Macron, while de Leusse works for the AI & Society Institute at ENS-PLS.

On social media, de Leusse describes herself as a winemaker, which may or may not prove interesting.

NomCom also reappointed Sajid Rahman for a second three-year term. One of the two new appointees replaces former board chair Maarten Botterman, who is term-limited after nine years’ service. The other replaces Chapman.

In terms of geographic balance, it means a director from the Asia-Pacific region has been replaced by one from Latin America. I don’t believe this causes any significant issues in terms of limiting other groups’ election options.

NomCom, which also selected seven other people for non-board roles, said 37% of its candidates were from Africa, with 25% from Asia-Pac, 16% from Latin America, and 8% from Europe.

Only 2% were from North America, perhaps due to the fact that NomCom was unable to pick anyone from that region for a directorship due to its geographic diversity quotas.

NomCom said that 27% of its candidates were female, 73% male, which is broadly in line with previous years and historical stats for general ICANN participation.

The new appointees take their seats at the conclusion of ICANN’s AGM in October.

NomCom confirms Americans rejected from ICANN board

North American candidates for ICANN’s board of directors are having their applications politely rejected, the Nominating Committee has confirmed.

Speaking to the GNSO Council at ICANN 82 in Seattle yesterday, NomCom chair-elect Tom Barrett said ICANN’s rules forbid the committee from now considering candidates from the region.

“When we opened the application window, January 15, there were no geographic restrictions for these three positions,” he said. “As you know, that has now changed…. We’ll be maxed out terms of the geographic limitation for North America.”

The specific changes of circumstance are the recent elections of Canadian Byron Holland by the ccNSO and American Greg DiBiase by the GNSO.

ICANN’s bylaws state that no more than five voting members of the board, excluding the CEO, may be from the same region. The board already has three other North Americans.

Candidates from North America who had already applied for the three open board seats will be emailed to inform them they are no longer eligible, Barrett said.

Candidates that had identified as North American but have dual citizenship with a country in a different region are eligible to reapply under their other affiliation, he said.

Two out, two in as NomCom picks new ICANN directors

Two ICANN directors will lose their seats on the board and be replaced by newcomers at the Org’s annual general meeting later this year.

Vice chair Danko Jevtović and Edmon Chung, who have served two and one of the maximum three three-year terms respectively, will depart, according to the announcement of this year’s Nominating Committee picks.

They will be replaced by Amitabh Singhal, from the Asia-Pacific region, who I believe is an Indian internet policy expert who founded .in registry NIXI and also sits on the board of .org manager Public Interest Registry.

Also named, Miriam Sapiro, who I can only assume is Ambassador Miriam Sapiro, a US Trade Representative under the Obama administration who also held a senior policy role at Verisign for a couple of years two decades ago before leaving on acrimonious terms.

Chair Tripti Sinha of North America has also been reappointed for a final term.

The noobs, who both seem incredibly well-qualified for their new roles, will take their seats for the first time at the end of ICANN 81 in Istanbul in October.

Correction: Sinha’s seat is safe

Last Friday, I speculated that, based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations, ICANN chair Tripti Sinha could find herself ineligible to continue on the ICANN board of directors this November, due to geographic diversity quotas.

My calculations were incorrect, it turns out. While she still needs to be reappointed by the Nominating Committee, Sinha is not limited by the geographic diversity limits. I’ve deleted the article and apologize for the error.

Doria leaving ICANN board a loss for new gTLD program

ICANN’s Nominating Committee has announced its 2023 selections for many of the Org’s leadership positions, and the big shocker is that director Avri Doria is not among the picks.

NomCom said it has reappointed lawyer Sarah Deutsch for a third three-year term, but Doria’s seat is being taken by Catherine Adeya, a Kenyan tech policy expert who describes herself as a “Senior Digital Transformation & Governance Specialist”.

Adeya holds various directorships and was director of research at the World Wide Web Foundation for a couple of years until layoffs in late 2022, according to her socials.

While Adeya seems incredibly well-qualified for the role, I can’t help but lament the loss of Doria’s institutional expertise. She, along with fellow ICANN lifer Becky Burr, have recently been doing a pretty good job working with the GNSO to help oil the wheels of implementation and get the new gTLD program up and running again.

The NomCom picks mean that the number of voting Africans on the 20-person board doubles from one to two and the number of North Americans is reduced by one. The gender mix of course remains the same, with six out of the 16 voting seats filled by women.

There’s been a lot of talk this year, particularly from chair Tripti Sinha, about a goal to achieve “gender parity” in ICANN’s leadership positions, and NomCom’s 2023 appointments certainly seem to reflect that.

Despite as few as 27% of the 155 applicants ticking the female box on the application form, versus 59% male, only two of the nine open positions were filled by men.

Two of the nine hail from Asia-Pacific, with three from Africa, two from North America, and one each from Europe and Latin America.

ICANN’s bylaws require at least one director from each of the five geographic regions and the board every year encourages NomCom to keep gender and geographical diversity in mind when making their picks.

All the NomCom picks take their seats at the end of ICANN’s public meeting this October.

ICANN wants more newbies on its board

ICANN is planning changes to how its board of directors are picked, including new measures to get more community virgins around the table.

Under proposed new rules for its Nominating Committee, which chooses eight of the 20 directors, at least three directors at any given time would have to be “unaffiliated”.

The definition of “unaffiliated” is extremely broad, seemingly ruling out anybody who has ever had any professional involvement with the ICANN community whatsoever. Even people who have showed up at ICANN meetings on their employer’s dime would be excluded.

By my reckoning, only two of the current crop of eight NomCom appointees could possibly meet this definition, based on their biographies.

The new rules would give NomCom some flexibility in cases where it really can’t find an otherwise qualified director without any ICANN ties.

NomCom members would also get their own terms extended under the proposals, from one year to two, in order to improve institutional memory. Some current members would have their terms extended while others would not.

To tackle the same continuity issues, ICANN also wants to create a Nominating Committee Standing Committee — that’s right, an entity with two “Committees” in its name — to oversee the NomCom.

The four-person committee would be made up of former NomCom members and would be tasked with things like reviewing the previous hiring cycle and suggesting possible procedural changes. It would have no input on who gets hired and fired.

The proposals, which originate from a review that began in 2016, are open for public comment until May 29.

ICANN rushes mystery directors onto board in apparent bylaws breach

ICANN is hurrying two new directors onto its board despite that fact that hardly anybody, apparently including the people who this week gave them the nod, seemed to know who they are.

The Org also seems to have technically breached its bylaws with the timing of the move, which also sees chair Maarten Botterman appointed for another three-year term.

Earlier this week the Empowered Community Administration, which has broad powers to hire and fire directors, submitted ICANN-drafted letters formally approving this year’s Nominating Committee picks — Botterman, Christopher Chapman and Sajidur Rahman.

But I’m told that the ECA, like the rest of us, were not given any information by ICANN about the two newcomers beyond their names and the geographic regions they hail from. They were basically waved onto the board blind, it seems.

Photographs subsequently published on the NomCom web site confirm the two directors’ identities. They’re the former head of the Australian Communications and Media Authority Chris Chapman, and Indonesian venture capitalist Sajid Rahman of MyAsiaVC.

Judging by the ICANN bylaws, approval by the ECA — which comprises one person from each of the ASO, the ccNSO, the GNSO, the ALAC and the GAC — is pretty much just a rubber-stamp. All the due diligence is done by NomCom and the Org.

But the appointments appear to amount to a technical bylaws breach on timing grounds, coming about a month late. The bylaws state:

At least two months before the commencement of each annual meeting, the Nominating Committee shall give the EC Administration (with a copy to the Decisional Participants and Secretary) written notice of its nomination of Directors for seats with terms beginning at the conclusion of the annual meeting, and the EC Administration shall promptly provide the Secretary (with a copy to the Decisional Participants) with written notice of the designation of those Directors.

This year’s AGM will be held in Kuala Lumpur from September 17, with the new directors taking their seats at its conclusion on September 22. So NomCom seems to have missed its “at least two months before” deadline by a month. ECA approval came August 15.

This year’s AGM is a little earlier than usual, which may help explain the problem. They’re usually held in October or November, and there hasn’t been one held in September since 2001.

NomCom also missed the two-month window in 2020, by an even bigger margin, for entirely understandable pandemic-related reasons. It announced its selections just a couple of weeks before the AGM.

Diversity takes a hit as NomCom replaces two ICANN directors with newcomers

ICANN will be left with fewer women and Africans on its board of directors following this year’s Nominating Committee selections, after which apparent community newcomers will take seats.

NomCom last night announced that its three picks for the board, due to take or retake their seats at the Annual General Meeting in Kuala Lumpur next month, are Maarten Botterman, Christopher Chapman and Sajidur Rahman.

Botterman is of course the current chair, and his reappointment was surely never in any doubt. He’ll be entering his third and final term at the AGM.

Less is known about the two newcomers. ICANN has so far provided no biographical information about them beyond the geographic region they represent. Botterman is European and both Chapman and Rahman are from Asia-Pacific.

Both new appointees have very common, google-resistant names, and neither appears to have a track record of vocal ICANN community participation.

Chapman, if I had to guess, would be Chris Chapman, the former long-term independent media regulator from Australia. Sajid Rahman is such a common name I don’t think I could confidently make a call on his identity early doors.

What we do know is that they’re both Asia-Pac, and they’re both replacing one-term African directors.

Leaving the board at the AGM will be NomCom’s 2019 picks Mandla Msimang from South Africa and Ihab Osman from Sudan. This means the sole remaining voting African on the board come October will be South African Alan Barrett.

Msimang leaving and being replaced by a man of course changes the gender mix. After the AGM, there will be six women on the 20-seat board, five out of the 16 voting seats.

Note that I’m not analyzing the picks by some subjective “woke” criteria — ICANN has strict rules about geographic representation in its bylaws and every year its board of directors encourages NomCom to consider the gender mix when making its selections.

The bylaws state that each of the five geographic regions must have at least one seat on the board, and that no one region can have more than five directors.

That said, ICANN doesn’t make it easy to figure out which directors hail from which regions. There’s no published breakdown that I’m aware of and many directors have multiple citizenships and/or are long-term residents of nations outside their birth region.

Two other directors have their current terms ending next month — GNSO appointee Becky Burr (North America), who has been reappointed for a third term, and Akinori Maemura (Asia-Pac) who is being replaced by Christian Kaufmann (Europe) as an ASO appointee.

NomCom broke down the gender and geographic mix of applicants for all the open board and non-board positions here.

ICANN names NomCom chairs

ICANN has announced its picks for chair and chair-elect of its influential Nominating Committee, raising questions about the latter role for not the first time.

The board of directors has picked Vanda Scartezini as chair and Amir Qayyum as chair elect, according to a newly published resolution.

It’s the third time in recent years that the previous year’s chair-elect, in this case Damon Ashcraft, has not gone on to become chair, as the ICANN bylaws anticipate.

The bylaws say that the chair-elect, who does not have a vote, is basically an apprentice to the chair who spends a year on the committee to prepare her or him for the big seat. The bylaws also say that the ICANN board can pick another person for chair if it wants to.

In this case, while Scartezini was on the 2022 committee she was not chair-elect.

Something similar happened last year, when the board picked 2021 chair-elect Tracy Hackshaw for chair, then changed its mind two weeks later.

It also caused a controversy in the 2015 cycle when it snubbed Ron Andruff.

The NomCom is responsible for picking several leadership roles in the ICANN community, including three directors per year.

New chair Scartezini is from the At-Large community and Brazil. Qayyum is from the root server community and Pakistan.