ICANN is pleased to announce that Mr. Doug Barton will be joining the company as General Manager, IANA. Given his technical training and experience working with the Domain Name System (DNS), Mr. Barton is particularly well suited for the position.
Doug joins the ICANN senior management team from YAHOO! where he has been head of DNS administration for all of Yahoo!'s worldwide operations. His recent responsibilities have included operating the authoritative DNS for yahoo.com (customer DNS for over 500,000 Yahoo! domains customers) and the resolver network relied on by the Yahoo! offices and production facilities. He has also worked closely with Yahoo! legal, brand, and marketing teams on domain name strategy and policy.
Some of his major accomplishments have included the consolidation, automation, and streamlining of the Yahoo! DNS operations and related account management.
A key member of the management team of YAHOO! since 1998, Doug has a thorough knowledge of DNS operations and theory, as well as an active involvement in the IETF protocol process. He is very familiar with IANA's relationship to the IETF community. He has also been a consumer of IANA's products, having written software to translate various tables managed by IANA into formats usable by other programs.
Doug's previous role required close contact with the ccTLD representatives and ICANN. He also has been a Charter member of the ICANN Security and Stability Committee since March 2002.
ICANN CEO and President Dr. Paul Twomey stated, "We are very pleased to have Doug as part of our management team. This appointment continues to support the new strategic direction that was set six months ago which strengthens our ties with the international internet community. Doug brings detailed and practical experience of managing a global resource."
In conjunction with Doug's appointment, ICANN is appointing another technical staff member, Steve Conte, to the IANA team. This will in part facilitate a handover of some work functions from Michelle Cotton who is shortly to go on maternity leave. Michelle will return to the IANA function later in the new year as a very valuable part of the team.
At the same time as announcing Doug Barton's appointment, Dr Twomey also pronounced that ICANN will move ahead with the identification and appointment of a President's International Advisory Committee for the IANA function, under the initial guidance of Steve Crocker, the Chair of ICANN's Security and Stability Committee.