Strategic Planning Committee of the Board (SPC)

Matthew Shears is an Internet and telecommunications policy consultant. Matthew spent a decade in Brussels working on EU standardization and telecommunications regulation before becoming involved in international Internet policy work, starting with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005. Since then he has participated in a range of Internet policy and governance fora and processes, including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), the World Telecommunications Policy Forum (WTPF), the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and was deeply involved in the work that led up to the IANA Stewardship transition and enhancing ICANN’s accountability. Matthew was a member of the UN Secretary General’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group on Internet Governance and is a member and past co-Chair of the non-governmental Advisory Network of the Freedom Online Coalition. He has worked for, among others, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), the Internet Society, Cisco, Teledesic and AT&T. A UK national, he received his MSc in European Studies from the London School of Economics and his BA in International Affairs from George Washington University. He was selected by the GNSO to serve on the Board and is entering his second term at the AGM in Hamburg in 2020.

Maarten Botterman is an independent strategic adviser on Internet governance and related issues with more than 25 years' experience in guiding governments and major organizations on the economic, business, and societal impacts of current and future Internet innovations and technologies. During those 25-plus years, he participated in and led more than 50 international projects and studies and published more than 80 peer-reviewed reports for governments and industry on Future Net issues with teams, including experts with advanced academic degrees from many disciplines, ranging from technology and mathematics to economics and law, and from many different countries and cultures.

Maarten was employed as Head of Unit and Senior Adviser to the Dutch Government (1987–1995) and as Scientific Officer to the Communications Technology Research program that was run by the European Commission (1995–1999). These years brought many insights about the public interest and governance aspects of the developing global, networked knowledge society. These insights were further deepened when working for RAND Corporation, setting up and running an Information Society policy practice in Europe (1999–2006), with an emphasis on policy evaluation and scenario planning. Since 2006, he has been working as an independent strategic adviser to governments and businesses in close cooperation with leading independent research institutions in Europe (including RAND Europe, TNO Netherlands, DTI Danmark, Inno France, and CIVIC Germany). Today, he is internationally recognized as a governance and future Internet expert and is a regular contributor to international Internet governance events such as the Internet Governance Forum, where he is leading the Dynamic Coalition for the Internet of Things.

Next to advising the Dutch government and the European Commission on Internet governance issues, he got deeply involved in ICANN's work as a Board member and Chairman of the Public Interest Registry (2008–2016), over time actively participating in more than 40 ICANN meetings. Having worked internationally since 1995, he has extensive experience in working with people from different national and cultural backgrounds, and is comfortable in engaging in English, German, French, and Dutch (mother tongue). He has a reputation as an independent, trustworthy, out-of-the-box thinker who is able to look at issues from several perspectives with strong awareness of the bigger picture. Having served on boards and having reported to boards, he has extensive experience with effective board governance and the responsibilities and obligations that come with a director's position on a U.S. nonprofit board. Over the years, he has been a frequent guest speaker and/or moderator, mostly at smart technology-related events.

Maarten holds an advanced degree in business economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is a certified coach and has a certificate in medical-based knowledge, both of which help in better understanding of what drives people in decision-making and going through life. In addition, he has completed several board excellence trainings with internationally renowned institutions, including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, IMD, MIT, Yale School of Management, and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. His areas of interest include government, civil society, and technology.

Maarten is based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board by the Nominating Committee in 2016 and served as Board Chair from 2019 until 2022. His third and final term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2025.

J. Beckwith (“Becky”) Burr is a partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, LLP, a Washington, DC law firm. Her practice focuses on data protection, data governance, and cyber security. Prior to joining the firm, Becky was Neustar’s Deputy General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer. In that capacity, she was responsible for implementing the company’s “privacy by design” program, and ensuring that the company maintained state-of-the-art privacy and data security to protect customer and consumer information. As an expert on Internet governance issues, Ms. Burr also provided policy and legal advice related to the company’s provision of Internet domain name registry services. Becky joined Neustar in 2012 from the Washington, DC office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where she was a partner in the Communications, Privacy and Internet Law Practice Group and the Financial Institutions Practice Group. Her practice was both regulatory and transactional, focused on e-commerce, information technology, intellectual property licensing, and international regulation of communications and information technology. She was recognized as a Nationwide Leader in the Privacy and Data Security field in the 2007- 2012 editions of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers in Business (Global 2011-2012) and selected by her peers for inclusion in the 2007- 2012 editions of The Best Lawyers in America, in the area of information technology law. Prior to joining WilmerHale, Becky served as the Associate Administrator and Director of International Affairs and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), where she was responsible for the privacy and Internet governance work streams described in the Clinton Administration’s Framework for Global Electronic Commerce. She also served as an Attorney Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 1995 – 1997, where she participated in developing the FTC’s approach to competition, consumer protection, and privacy/data protection in the digital marketplace. Becky’s history with ICANN dates back to 1997 when she headed NTIA’s Office of International Affairs and participated in the U.S. Government (USG) team that produced the so-called “Green Paper” and “White Paper” on privatization of the domain name system. As head of NTIA’s Office of International Affairs, Becky was responsible for recognizing ICANN on behalf of the USG in 1998, and for negotiating the original Registry Agreement and Registrar Accreditation Agreement. She served as the U.S. representative to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) in ICANN’s early years and, after leaving the USG in late 2000, represented registries, registry operators, and registrars in their dealings with ICANN as a lawyer in private practice. In that capacity, Becky represented individual sponsored and new gTLD applicants, as well as the Registrar Stakeholder Group in negotiating the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement. From 2006 through 2016, Becky served on the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) Council, first as a Nominating Committee (NomCom) appointee, and more recently as the representative of .US. Becky received a BA from Yale (1977), and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center (1987). She was selected by GNSO to serve on the Board commencing at the Annual General Meeting in 2016. She will begin her second term at the Annual General Meeting 2019.

Edmon Chung is a social innovator and entrepreneur. Edmon currently serves as the CEO of DotAsia Organisation, serves on the Executive Committee of Internet Society Hong Kong (ISOC HK), the Board of Make a Difference (MaD) Institute, and heads the secretariat for the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF). Edmon served also on the founding board of the Internet Governance Forum Support Association (IGFSA), continues to support its secretariat, cofounded the annual Hong Kong Kids International Film Festival (KIFF.Asia), and participates extensively on Internet governance and social innovation matters. Edmon is an inventor of patents of internationalized domain names (IDN) and email addresses technologies, and has served on many global IDN related technical and policy groups, that made possible the introduction of multilingual domain names and email addresses on the Internet. Edmon won the Most Innovative Award in the Chinese Canadian Entrepreneurship Award in 2001. In 2000, Edmon was selected by The Globe and Mail as one of the Young Canadian Leaders.

Between 2006 and 2010, Edmon served on the ICANN Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council, between 2010 and 2012 on the ICANN At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), and between 2006 and 2011, as an elected member of the Elections Committee of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the Information Technology Subsector. Edmon has a Bachelor of Applied Science and Master of Engineering from the University of Toronto. He was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board by the Nominating Committee in 2021. His term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2024.

Avri Doria is an independent researcher and educator based in Providence, RI, with a number of contracts with both non-governmental organizations and within the Internet technical community. As a technologist, Avri has been involved in the development of Internet protocols and architectures for over 30 years. She has been active in ICANN policy since 2005 and was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board by the Nominating Committee in 2017. Her term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2023. Avri was awarded the ICANN Multistakeholder award in 2014.

Dr. James Galvin has over three decades of experience in secure and robust operations in all aspects of networking and the life cycle of a domain name. He currently serves as Donuts, Inc. Director of Strategic Relationships and Technical Standards, applying this experience to the development of technical standards and policies in support of strategic initiatives to advance secure and robust operations. James began his career in 1989 developing Internet Standards in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for secure email, secure network management, and DNS security, which are still applicable and in use today. He continues to be an active participant in the IETF where he currently serves as Co-Chair of the Registration Extensions Protocols Working Group, the working group currently responsible for all Internet Standards related to the operation of domain name registration services and the protocol interactions between registries and registrars. He has been part of ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) since 2002, and served as its Vice Chair for seven years until December 2017. He has served the ICANN community as chair of various technical expert working groups and has engaged in multiple PDPs. He is currently active in the Registry Stakeholder Group DNS Abuse Working Group, the contracted party’s technical operations working group (CPH TechOps), and the CPH RDAP working group. James is a Pioneering Member of the Internet Society, and served as its Vice President of Chapters and Individuals from 2002 until 2005. He has been a member of both the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) since the early 1980s. James was appointed to serve as the SSAC’s non-voting liaison to the ICANN Board on 28 October 2021.

Wes Hardaker is a Senior Computer Scientist at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute and is responsible for overseeing teams to develop and execute research ideas. He is principally responsible for the operation and management of the Internet’s Internet’s b.root-servers.net [b.root-servers.net] domain name system critical infrastructure.  His research focuses on enhancing the DNS, network management, routing and other Internet protocols, and studying malicious actor behaviors through intrusion detection. Wes has been actively participating in the Internet Engineering Task Force open standards body that documents Internet protocols for roughly 25 years, and he currently sits on the Internet Architecture Board. Within ICANN, Wes is the principal representative for b.root-servers.net [b.root-servers.net] in the Root Server System Advisory Committee.

Wes was appointed to serve as the RSSAC’s non-voting liaison to the ICANN Board beginning in September 2022.

As Vice President of Technology at Akamai Technologies, Christian Kaufmann leads the Technology department, which is responsible for driving the technical evolution of the Akamai Edge platform, including a wide set of responsibilities like hardware engineering, data center architecture, network architecture and engineering, and software and systems development.

Christian has extensive experience in corporate governance, including hiring Chief Executive Officers and handling mergers and acquisitions. He has served on various other boards over the last 15 years, including at Internet Exchanges and the Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC).

Before joining Akamai, Christian worked in various technical and managerial roles at several Internet service providers and carriers, including Telia Sonera, Easynet, and Cable & Wireless.

Christian has a Master of Science in Advanced Networking from The Open University in the U.K. He also holds various technical certifications, including Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) and Juniper Networks Certified Internet Expert (JCNIE) certifications.

He was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board of Directors by the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) in 2022. His term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2025.

Sajid Rahman is a multidisciplinary leader who has worked in the financial services, health care, renewable energy, and technology sectors. He served as Managing Director at Standard Chartered Bank at locations across Asia and Africa. Later, Sajid founded a social business in health care, serving over five million people. Currently, he is the Managing Partner of MyAsiaVC – a venture capital firm investing in the second-order impacts of macro trends. He is also the founder of industry-scale renewable energy projects.

Sajid is an experienced board member. He is the Chair of the Audit Committee of a public-sector bank and adviser to a number of startups. He is an architect of an accelerator program for rural entrepreneurs and subject-matter experts. He is a well-known business strategist and capable change agent with over 20 years of experience at the senior management level and 10 years of experience at the board level, managing transformation and growth agendas.

Sajid is a writer on technology trends and has been published regularly in tech journals. He is a notable speaker at global forums on health, technology, and financial services organized by Financial Times, Bloomberg, Mobile World Congress, Royal School of Medicine, Fortune Magazine, etc.

Sajid has a master's degree in Commerce and is a scholar of the Financial Times Non-Executive Director diploma program.

He was nominated to serve as an ICANN Board Director by the Nominating Committee in 2022. His term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2025.