I’m very pleased to announce two appointments to our senior leadership team in the ICANN organization:
Andre Abed, Vice President, Relationship and Delivery Management and Interim Head of Engineering and Information Technology (E&IT) has been promoted to Chief Information Officer. Andre joined ICANN in January 2022 and has served as Interim Head of Engineering and IT since December 2023. He is a proven leader with more than 30 years’ experience leading global technology organizations. He will continue to lead the Engineering and IT team in their work to provide secure, effective and accessible technology services and platforms.
I’m also pleased to announce that Ambassador Janis Karklins has been appointed Head of Government Engagement. Janis was a member of the Latvian diplomatic service for more than three decades. During this time, he represented Latvia at the United Nations at Geneva and the Council of Europe, and served as Ambassador to France, Andorra, Monaco, and UNESCO.
Janis is a longstanding participant in the Internet governance community, and in ICANN specifically. He served as Vice President of the Preparatory Committee of the Geneva Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and was President of the Preparatory Committee of the Tunis Phase of WSIS in 2005. Janis also has been a long-standing member of the ICANN community. He was chair of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) from 2007 to 2010 and served as the GAC liaison to the ICANN Board of Directors. In 2014 he was appointed Chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of the Internet Governance Forum by the UN Secretary General, and from 2019 to 2021 he facilitated the Generic Names Supporting Organization Expedited Policy Development Process on the Temporary Specification for generic top-level domain Registration Data, Phase 2.
I’d like to sincerely thank Veni Markovski for serving as Interim Head of Government Engagement for the past two years. We are grateful for his oversight of the team throughout the past two years, for his contributions as a member of the Executive Team, and his outstanding leadership of ICANN’s efforts in the WSIS+20 discussions.
Organizational Updates
In addition to these appointments, we are taking the opportunity to evolve our structure so that we can better serve our stakeholders, create stronger synergies and strategic alignment across teams with similar skills, and more efficiently support our organizational objectives.
Today, the Government Engagement (GE) function is responsible for nurturing ICANN’s relationships with governments and ministries around the world, including United Nations member representatives and international governmental organizations. Jamie Hedlund, Senior Vice President (SVP) of Contractual Compliance & U.S. Government Engagement has led our engagement with the U.S. government since 2010. Our work with governments has always been a critical aspect of our overall engagement strategy. Now, perhaps more than ever, we must ensure that there is close collaboration, and a single, sharp strategic alignment in our government relations efforts. To accomplish this, the two teams will benefit from closer coordination as one function. I am therefore creating a new department that includes current US Government relations, Government and IGO engagement as well as the Contractual Compliance function. I have asked Jamie to lead this new combined effort as the functional executive. GE will now report to Jamie in his new role as SVP, Global Government Engagement and Contractual Compliance and Janis will report directly to Jamie. In addition to the efficiencies of all government engagement work being conducted in one department, this also will allow Janis and the GE team to focus on the crucial work in the months and year ahead, while Jamie continues to be part of the Executive Team and lead the new department.
Technology is another essential area of our work that is conducted in two functions: E&IT’s focus is on supporting the community and org staff with reliable, innovative, and secure solutions that enable us to operate each day. The Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) team, led by John Crain, Chief Technology Officer, uses its expertise to help improve knowledge about the identifiers ICANN helps coordinate; to disseminate this information to the Internet community; to improve the technical operation of the Internet's system of unique identifiers; and to improve ICANN's technological stature.
While the teams have distinct objectives and a range of skillsets, there is a clear opportunity to enhance our efficiencies, build on the shared and unique talents of our team members, and strengthen our coordination and collaboration by bringing these teams together under one function. E&IT will become a part of OCTO, reporting to John Crain. In his new role, Andre will report directly to John.
My thanks to Jamie and John for adding these responsibilities to their portfolios.
Please join me in congratulating Andre on his well-deserved promotion. Janis will officially join ICANN on 19 October, and we look forward to welcoming him at ICANN84 in Dublin.
