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Three new ICANN directors started today
A former Dutch politician, a cable company VP and a Latin American ccTLD manager joined the ICANN board of directors today.
The three new directors took their seats at the conclusion of the ICANN 54 public meeting in Dublin.
Two were Nominating Committee appointees, the third was selected by the Address Supporting Organization to replace six-year veteran Ray Plzak.
Lousewies van der Laan is possibly the highest-profile new director.
She is a former politician who has sat as a member of both Dutch national and European parliaments.
She was a member of the super liberal D66 party in the Netherlands, briefly leading whilst it was part of a governing coalition before a leadership vote defeat and her subsequent retirement from politics in 2006.
Wikipedia has her as a former party spokesperson for “foreign policy, higher education, justice, technology, European affairs and gay rights”
Since then, she has spent time as chief of staff of the president of the International Criminal Court and an independent public affairs consultant.
She’s the second former MEP to sit on the current ICANN board, after German Facebook lobbyist Erika Mann.
The other NomCom appointee is Rafael “Lito” Ibarra, who runs SVNet, the ccTLD manager for El Salvador’s .sv domain.
According to ICANN, he is known as the “father of the Internet” in El Salvador, due to his contributions over the last couple of decades.
He seems to have received the .sv delegation from Jon Postel himself, in the pre-ICANN days.
He’s also on the board of LACNIC, the Latin American IP address registry.
The ASO appointee is Ron da Silva, VP of network engineering at US cable giant Time Warner Cable.
His previous employers include AOL and Sprint. He’s also been chair of ARIN’s advisory council.
The NomCom also reappointed incumbent George Sadowsky, who already has six years of ICANN board service under his belt.
The other two departing directors were Wolfang Kleinwachter and Gonzalo Navarro.
I told Lousewies she was my new favorite board member because, she gives no fucks and takes no shit and she responded (I’m paraphrasing), Thank you. Remind me if I ever start giving a fuck or taking shit. <3
That’s a vague enough question and answer that both could mean essentially anything.
Fair enough. Meet her, though, and see if you don’t agree.