ICANN names new Chair and Vice-Chair for Board of Directors

Source: ICANN website.
Chalaby.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has appointed a new leadership team to head the ICANN Board of Directors. Cherine Chalaby and Chris Disspain were appointed at the 19th Annual General Meeting (AGM), as the new Chair of the ICANN Board and Vice-Chair respectively at its 60th Public Meeting (ICANN60), held in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The Nominating Committee first selected Chalaby to serve on the Board in December 2010. He was elected as the Vice-Chair in 2015, and is succeeding Dr Stephen Crocker, who has served as ICANN Board Chair since 2011.

Said Chalaby: “The Board had enough confidence in ICANN’s maturity to elect me even though I do not come from the long and distinguished line of ‘Masters of the Internet Universe'. I look forward to the future with great hope and enthusiasm, particularly to the partnership we will continue to build with the ICANN community.”

“Cherine has been an excellent Vice-Chair over the past two years. This is evident from the unanimous support from all members of the Board in his election as the next Chair of the ICANN Board. I’m proud and excited and will work with him closely for a smooth and orderly transition of responsibilities,” said Crocker.

The country code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) selected Disspain to join the ICANN Board in June 2011. He is an active ICANN community member and served as the Chair of ccNSO from 2004 to 2011.

The Board also welcomed new Board members León Sanchez (Latin America and the Caribbean, LAC), Matthew Shears (EMEA), Avri Doria (North America, NA), Sarah Deutsch (NA), and Manal Ismail (Egypt) as the Governmental Advisory Committee Liaison to the Board. They replaced outgoing Crocker, Rinalia Abdul Rahim, Asha Hemrajani, Markus Kummer and Thomas Schneider.

ICANN60, held in the GCC countries for the first time, discussed data protection and privacy rules, particularly the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A total of 1,910 participants attended 325 public sessions at ICANN60. It was the first time at an ICANN meeting for 704 of them. Two hundred and seventy-seven attendees were from the Middle East region.

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