Subject: Welcome New Internet Society CEO, Kathryn C. Brown

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 14:08:24 -0500

Forwarding on behalf of Bob Hinden, Chair of the Internet Society Board of Trustees.

-----------------

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