Bruce Tonkin
Dr Bruce Tonkin is an Australian citizen and is currently Chief Strategy Officer for Melbourne IT Limited, where he is responsible for managing the development of the company's strategic and operating plans, strategic initiatives with major customers and suppliers, and managing evaluation of merger and acquisition opportunities.
Bruce holds a bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (1st class honours) and a Ph.D. in electrical and electronic engineering. Before joining Melbourne IT in 1999, he worked in small private engineering consulting businesses, universities, and industry research laboratories (e.g., AT&T Bell Labs in the 1980s). Bruce is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Melbourne IT was the first commercial administrator for the .com.au namespace (beginning in 1996), and in 1999 was one of the first five test-bed registrars when ICANN established registrar competition for the existing com/net/org registry. Melbourne IT now provides domain name registration services for many gTLDs and ccTLDs.
Bruce attended his first ICANN meeting in Melbourne in March 2001 and became involved with the registrars constituency on behalf of Melbourne IT. He was subsequently elected to the GNSO Council by the Registrars constituency, and became chair of the DNSO Names Council, and subsequently the GNSO Council in 2002. During his term on the GNSO Council, the GNSO has introduced new ICANN policies for transfers, Whois, and deleted names, and has also progressed the work on new gTLDS and further improvements in Whois.
Bruce has also been an active participant in policy development for the .au ccTLD on behalf of Melbourne IT. Major policy work has included the introduction of registrar competition in the .au namespace, and the introduction of a range of policies covering areas such as domain name registration policies and Whois.
He was first elected to the ICANN Board by the Generic Names Supporting Organisation for a three year term that started six months after the 2006 annual general meeting, and was re-elected in March 2010 for another 3 year term. At the organizational meeting following the regular ICANN Board meeting on June 24, 2011, Bruce was elected Vice-Chair of the ICANN Board.
At the organizational meeting following the regular ICANN Board meeting on June 24, 2011, Bruce was elected Vice-Chair of the ICANN Board. Bruce was re-elected Vice-Chair at the Organizational meeting in Dakar on 28 October 2011.
