Last week, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) introduced their new CEO, Fadi Chehade, at its 44nd meeting in Prague. Chehade brings extensive international experience in the technology sector, having most recently served as CEO of Vocado. Prior to this, he worked at IBM and CoreObjects as well as created successful start-ups Viacore and RosettaNet, among others. With five decades of citizenship in Lebanon, Egypt and the United States, ICANN is confident in Chehade’s ability and expertise to lead a new era of the worldwide internet. Nevertheless, he joins at one of the most influential and pivotal times of internet history.
Below are 6 top issues and challenges that ICANN’s new CEO will be inheriting come October 1, 2012:
- New gTLD Process Management and Implementation
1,930 proposals have been submitted for 1,409 different top level domain names. During his tenure, Chehade will be responsible for managing the process and implementation of new gTLDs (including Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs) – from policy, evaluation and application acceptance to staffing, funds and infrastructure support. There are many different stakeholders with significant interests in new gTLDs including community groups, governments, political organizations and brands around the world; much is at stake.