ICANN Announcements

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ICANN Announces New Staff Appointments

17 January 2007

Regional Liaison - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Veni Markovski has been appointed to join ICANN's Regional Liaison team. Veni is well known to the ICANN community as a former Board member (his term expiring in December 2006). Veni has strong language skills and contacts in this region. He has been working on Internet issues since 1990 and was one of Bulgaria's first Internet entrepreneurs. He was co-founder of BOL.BG, and co-founder and Chairman of the Internet Society of Bulgaria. He was an early adopter of the Internet having been a system operator of a Bulletin Board System from 1990 – 1993. Veni has also worked in different United Nations Development Programs and European Union funded projects. He has advised governments, businesses and non-profits on a number of Internet-related issues. As well as the ICANN Board of Directors he has also served on Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and on the Internet Society Board of Trustees.

Veni will report to the Vice President Global and Strategic Partnerships, Theresa Swinehart, and will work closely with the existing Regional Liaisons.

General Manager, Public Participation

Kieren McCarthy has been appointed to the role of General Manager, Public Participation. The position reports to the Executive Officer and Vice President Corporate Affairs, Paul Levins. The primary responsibility of this role is to ensure active participation in ICANN processes by Internet stakeholders, including end users.

Kieren is well known to many members of the ICANN community through his work as a journalist. He has been a participant in the field of international media and communications for over 10 years and has written for most media outlets in the United Kingdom that cover Internet issues, from national newspapers to small technical journals. He has been a reporter and sub-editor for The Register, PC Week, PC Dealer as well as The Times and The Independent amongst others. He has also been engaged as a media trainer by a number of global IT companies. In that time he has interviewed and written about key Internet, government and business leaders. He has a strong interest in the use of interactive media tools to encourage participation in Internet debates. He recently built and ran a remote participation web site for ICANN's São Paolo Meeting held in December 2006. He has a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Nottingham University.

Director, Contractual Compliance

Stacy K. Burnette has been appointed as Director, Contractual Compliance. She will collaboratively develop the compliance function at ICANN including staffing the compliance function and implementing the auditing of gTLD registry, registrar and other contracts to ensure compliance by all parties to the agreements.

Stacy is a telecommunications attorney and manager with approximately ten years of contract negotiation, administration and enforcement experience. She has published in the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors Quarterly Journal on Telecommunications and she has been a frequent speaker at telecommunications seminars and conferences.

Prior to joining ICANN, Stacy worked as a Telecommunications Regulatory Officer and Manager for the City of Los Angeles, Information Technology Agency where she managed a staff of professionals who were responsible for the negotiation, administration and enforcement of the City's numerous multi-million dollar cable television franchise agreements.

Before joining the City of Los Angeles, Stacy was the General Counsel for the District of Columbia Office of Cable Television and Telecommunications, managing a team of attorneys who assisted in all aspects of cable regulation, contract enforcement and cable communications policy development. She also served as a civil trial attorney for the District of Columbia Government for approximately seven years.

Stacy holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting and a Juris Doctorate from Howard University in Washington D.C.

Director, Project Office

Carole Cornell recently joined ICANN as the Director, Project Office. In this new role, she will: provide oversight for all projects; maintain responsibility for data integration and reporting for all projects and programs within the organization; create and maintain a uniform approach to project management; and serve as a change agent for continuous improvement through improved/enhanced methodologies.

Carole brings over 25 years of diversified, multi-national and global experience in project management. Most recently Carole served as Vice President, Operations and in Business Development at WET Design (a company which designs and installs custom water features world wide).

Prior to that, Carole was with Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) as Executive Director, Project Technical Services and Integrated Business Applications. Her responsibilities there included Project Controls Group, Estimating, Planning and Scheduling, as well as Project Coordination. Some of her key accomplishments were implementing the "Seven Steps to Controlling a Project" resulting in greater productivity and efficiency; integrating standard management reports between SAP, Primavera and other management information packages. She also implemened processes and procedures such as change management, risk assessment and earned value.

Carole's experience also includes the Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee (LAOOC) where she was a Project Manager.

Carole holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State University in Hotel and Restaurant Institutions.

We welcome Veni, Kieren, Stacy and Carole to these roles and wish them every success.