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ICANN 2020 Nominating Committee Announces Leadership Selections

2 October 2020

LOS ANGELES – 2 October 2020 – Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 2020 Nominating Committee is pleased to announce the selections for seven leadership positions as follows:

ICANN Board of Directors

Sarah Deutsch
(North America)

Avri Doria
(North America)

Public Technical Identifiers (PTI) Board of Directors

James Gannon
(Europe)

At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC)

Pari Esfandiari
(Europe)

Gregory Shatan
(North America)

Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) Council

Javier Rúa-Jovet
(North America)

Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council

Olga Cavalli
(Latin America and the Caribbean Islands)


Those selected will begin their terms after the ICANN69 Virtual Annual General Meeting, which runs from 13-22 October 2020.

Profile of Applicants

The 2020 Nominating Committee received 96 applications from 65 men and 18 women (13 applicants chose not to disclose) during the application period from 18 December 2019 to 25 February 2020.

The regional breakdown of this year's applicants was:

  • 22 from Africa
  • 28 from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands
  • 7 from Europe
  • 22 from Latin America and the Caribbean Islands
  • 17 from North America

The Nominating Committee is charged with recruiting and selecting a portion of ICANN's leadership. In doing so, the Nominating Committee is mandated to ensure that ICANN's overall leadership is diverse in geography, culture, skills, experience, and perspective. Further, selectees should:

  • Have integrity, objectivity, and sound judgment.
  • Support decision-making within groups.
  • Work effectively in English.
  • Understand ICANN's mission.
  • Be committed to ICANN's success.
  • Have experience in world affairs.
  • Contribute to cultural, professional, and geographic expertise.
  • Be able to work long and hard, generally as volunteers.

A Message From The Chair

The 2020 Nominating Committee was fortunate to receive applications from many highly qualified candidates. The entire 2020 Nominating Committee thanks all those who applied for leadership positions. While we could not appoint everyone who applied, we encourage all applicants to continue participating, as your involvement is valued and important to ICANN's mission.

Finally, we want to extend our congratulations and best wishes to the selected candidates. The Nominating Committee has the utmost confidence in their ability to help lead their respective groups forward and we are thrilled that they will join or continue working with the ICANN community, the ICANN Board, and the PTI Board in leadership positions.

To learn more about the Nominating Committee, visit: http://nomcom.icann.org/

About ICANN

ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or other device. That address must be unique, so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a non-profit public benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.