Forwarding on behalf of Bob Hinden, Chair of the Internet Society Board of
Trustees.
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On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am very pleased to announce that we have
chosen Kathy Brown as the next Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society.
The ISOC Board conducted a very thorough search over 10 months to find the best
candidate to lead the Internet Society. Through our search process, we
identified and met with talented people from around the globe representing
leaders from our broad Internet community and across a large number of
industries.
The Internet is facing many new challenges ranging from the NSA pervasive
surveillance, how the governance of the Internet should be structured, and if
the current open Internet model is sustainable. The Board looked for a person
who can lead the Internet Society to meet these challenges and decided that
Kathy Brown is the person to do that. She is a proven leader with in-depth
knowledge of global Internet governance policy; well acquainted with the
community, commercial, technical, government, and non-government organizations
that are stakeholders in the debate around the future of the Internet; and a
strong manager. She has all of the qualities we were looking for in the next
CEO of the Internet Society.
Kathy joins the Internet Society from global strategy firm Albright Stonebridge
Group, where she was a senior advisor. For more than a decade prior, Kathy was
Senior Vice President for Policy Development and Corporate Responsibility at
Verizon. In that role, she helped Verizon identify and navigate emerging
digital issues and led its global corporate responsibility initiatives,
overseeing an investment of more than $60 million a year in programs and grants
that helped support Internet development. In 2010 she partnered with ISOC to
launch a highly successful forum on the Internet and higher education in East
Africa. In addition, she served on Verizon's corporate councils for the
development of the company's online privacy and content policies and promoted
Verizon's Human Rights Statement and Supplier Code of Conduct.
In her policy role at Verizon, she led the company's international public
policy engagement through a period of dynamic change. She represented the
company in the successful adoption by the OECD of principles for Internet
policy making and was a member of the U.S. delegation to the ITU World
Conference on International Telecommunications treaty negotiations. Kathy
joined Verizon from Washington D.C. law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where
she was a partner specializing in legal and regulatory communications policy.
Earlier in her career, Kathy served in U.S. President Clinton’s Administration
where she was deeply involved in policy development that was instrumental to
the deployment and adoption of the global Internet. She served as Head of the
Office of Policy and Development at the National Telecommunications Information
Administration and then as Chief of Staff to Federal Communications Commission
Chairman William E. Kennard. At the FCC, she managed the staff supporting
Chairman Kennard's historic decision to keep the Internet unregulated, to fund
the E-rate, and to increase radio spectrum availability to fuel wireless
technology innovation. Before moving to Washington D.C., Kathy held senior
roles for 15 years in government service in New York.
Kathy will start on January 1 and be based in the Internet Society’s Reston
office.
In February 2013, Internet Society CEO Lynn St. Amour announced her decision to
step down at the end of her contract. Since joining the Internet Society in
1998 and at the helm since 2001, Lynn has worked tirelessly and passionately to
establish the Internet Society as an internationally respected expert on
Internet governance, and technical, development, and policy issues. She has
made ISOC what it is today. The Board and I greatly appreciate all her hard
work and wish her the very best in her future endeavors. Lynn will continue to
work with Kathy through the end of January to ensure a smooth transition.
The press release, Kathy Brown's bio, and related material can be found at:
http://www.internetsociety.org
Thanks,
Bob Hinden
Chair of the Internet Society Board of Trustees