Jamie Hedlund replaces Allen Grogan @ICANN, heads Consumer Safeguards

ITRealms:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has named Jamie Hedlund, its Vice President for Strategic Programmes for ICANN's Global Domains Division, reports ITRealms.

Hedlund, ITRealms gathered, takes over Mr. Allen Grogan's role as Senior Vice President (SVP), Contractual Compliance and Consumer Safeguards, following Grogan's planned departure from ICANN.

ITRealms recalls that ICANN had in May 2016 proclaimed that then Chief Contract Compliance Officer, Allen R. Grogan, and Nora Abusitta, Senior Vice President of Development and Public Responsibility Programmes (DPRD), have notified the organization of their intent to leave ICANN later last year.

Specifically, Grogan will transitioned to a part-time role on 1 August, 2016 and continued to oversee Contractual Compliance and Consumer Safeguards until his departure at the end of December 2016.

For ICANN chief executive officer, Mr. Göran Marby, the contractual compliance, consumer safeguards and public responsibility are areas of central importance to ICANN. 

"Jamie has years of ICANN and legal experience, which he will be using to build upon the great work already done by Allen and the rest of the global Contractual Compliance team. Jamie was central to this organization's work on the IANA Stewardship Transition, and I'm delighted to have him contribute further to ICANN's mission," he said.

Also, he said, the Senior Vice President (SVP), Global Communications, Duncan Burns, will take on Hedlund's former responsibilities overseeing the United States (US) government relations and management of ICANN's Washington D.C. office.

ITRealms also gathered that as part of this change, Hedlund will become a member of the Executive Team and report to Göran Marby, the CEO.

"I am excited to take on this new challenge. Contractual compliance and consumer safeguards are critical to the credibility of ICANN's multistakeholder model. I look forward to working with the whole community to uphold the integrity of our mission and our agreements," said Jamie.

Noteworhty is that Jamie Hedlund is a senior executive with over 20 years of experience in public policy and business development in the communications industry. He joined ICANN in 2010 as Vice President for Government Affairs for the Americas. In his recent role as Vice President of Strategic Programmes for ICANN's Global Domain Division, he worked at the intersection of ICANN's contracts with registries, registrars and global public policy. He was also responsible for ICANN's relationships with North American governments and played a crucial role during the Stewardship Transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).


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Pix: Jamie Hedlund @ICANN

Grogan is ICANN Chief Contract Compliance Officer

ITRealms:

As the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) commenced in the city of Los Angeles, the body has appointed Allen Grogan as Chief Contract Compliance Officer (CCCO), reports ITRealms.

Mr. Grogan, ITRealms learnt would oversee Contract Compliance and Safeguards and will report directly to President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Fadi Chehadé, thus becoming a member of ICANN’s Global Leadership Team.  Grogan has served as ICANN’s Chief Contracting Counsel since May 2013.

According to Chehade, “Expanding the domain name space as we are doing through the New gTLD Program requires that we continue to align our operational capabilities with the demands imposed by 1300 new Registry Agreements.” Stressing that Allen’s expertise would add value to the excellent operational capabilities of current team a deeper level of legal experience and analysis.

ITRealms gathered that Allen Grogan has negotiated and implemented the new gTLD agreements, and has more than 30 years of experience as a lawyer specializing in technology and the Internet.

In addition, his experience and knowledge of the contracts related to the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) programme will serve the team well in grappling with compliance issues related to the safeguards and ICANN’s Public Interest Commitments.

The workload of ICANN’s contractual compliance team has increased remarkably. From August 2013 to August 2014, 36,732 informal complaints were filed against registrars, while 853 informal complaints were filed against registries. During the same period, 72 formal complaints were filed.

Maguy Serad, ICANN’s Vice President for Contractual Compliance since 2012, will remain in her role and report to Grogan. During her tenure, Serad has successfully scaled and expanded the team, making it an effective global department. 

“She has operationalized our compliance capabilities in a way that embraces growth” says ICANN President.

For Grogan “Under Maguy’s leadership, the Contractual Compliance team has done an outstanding job building a sustainable foundation for the future. We now want to build on that foundation in the most efficient and comprehensive manner possible.”

Grogan will also be exploring ways that ICANN can work with others to help safeguard registrants and the global Internet community in ways that may go beyond pure contractual enforcement.

Further, the Director, Global Media Affairs at ICANN Mr. Brad White quoted Chehade as saying that a newly created position of Consumer Safeguards Director will also report to Grogan, and focus specifically on implementation of those ICANN contract safeguards directed toward protecting consumers.

“Today, we have 21 staff members, spread over three hub offices. We are now able to offer 24 hour support in nine languages. Our next step is to begin building a broader compliance vision that will serve us well in our mission of providing public benefit,” he said.

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