ICANN is pleased to announce the following new staff appointments joining the Global Partnership's regional liaison network. These appointments demonstrate ICANN's continued commitment to build on existing outreach and support the increasing international participation in ICANN and efficiency of the ICANN multi-stakeholder environment.
Baher Esmat: ICANN Global Partnership -- Middle East Liaison
Baher joins ICANN from the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), where he served since 2002, most recently as Telecom Planning Manager, where his responsibilities included projects relating to communications infrastructure and service development within the framework of building Egypt's Information Society.
Prior to joining MCIT, Baher served as a System's Engineer at Egypt's Cabinet Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC / RITSEC), where he participated in establishing the first Internet Point of Presence in Egypt servicing the public and private sectors; and a System's consultant with Newbridge Networks, later acquired by Alcatel.
Baher was selected by the UN Secretary General to be a member of the WSIS Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), and served as Chair of the Egyptian IPv6 Task Force until his joining ICANN.
Baher is well known to the Internet and international community and brings a wealth of experience which will be invaluable to ICANN.
Pablo Hinojosa: ICANN Global Partnership -- Latin American Liaison
Previous to joining ICANN, Pablo was Director for Multilateral Affairs in the Mexican Federal Telecommunications Commission (COFETEL). As a government official, he was the Representative from Mexico at ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), where he held the positions of Vice- Chair and Convener of the Working Group on ccTLDs. He has attended numerous ICANN meetings since 2001.
Pablo was part of the Mexican delegation attending WSIS and also Advisor to the Chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Telecommunications and Information Working Group (APEC-TEL). He has also experience in other fora such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Latino-American Telecom Regulators Forum (Regulatel), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (CITEL).
Pablo is well known to the ICANN and international organization community, and brings a wealth of experience which will be invaluable to ICANN.
Giovanni Seppia: ICANN Global Partnership -- European Liaison
Giovanni joins ICANN from the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries (CENTR), where he served as CENTR's General Manager since 2004, working with all members of CENTR and managing and supervising the operations of CENTR. Additionally, as General Manager of CENTR, Giovanni's responsibilities included consolidating CENTR policy positions and representing CENTR at ICANN meetings, the WSIS and WGIG discussions, the European Union, and other international meetings.
Prior to joining CENTR, Giovanni worked for the Institute of Informatics and Telematics (IIT) -- CNR, in Italy, where he served as Head of External Relations of the Italian Registry and was responsible for services relating to the registration and maintenance of domain names under the .it ccTLD, including the help-desks and the relationships with media and registrars.
Giovanni is well known to the ICANN community in his prior roles, and brings a wealth of experience which will be invaluable to ICANN.
Additional appointments:
Anne Rachel Inne: Regional Liaison for Africa
Anne Rachel Inne, well known within ICANN in her role as Policy Analyst, has been promoted to her new role as Liaison responsible for the Africa region.