Support for Board/Chair Remuneration

["Ron Andruff" <randruff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the last decade, ICANN has grown from an ill-funded, fledgling
organization into a global institution with an annual budget in the tens of
millions of dollars to meet the needs of an ever-growing Internet community
(1.7 billion people log on daily, at last count).  The ICANN community has
supported the establishment of a senior management at significant
compensation levels to draw what we believe are exceedingly well-qualified
individuals to ICANN to fulfill the necessary management role of our unique,
global resource, the Internet.

 

On the other hand, while ICANN has managed to attract, for the most part,
qualified individuals to sit on its Board of Directors up to this point, I,
and others, feel strongly that we are now well-passed the stage where our
Board, and more particularly, our Chair, do not receive honorariums.
Therefore, we fully support our Chair receiving an appropriate fee (1/10th
of what we pay our CEO, would not be inappropriate in our view) for his or
her service.  Considering the amount of workload and high-profile that the
CEO and Chair carry equally, if ICANN is to attract the type of individuals
that will enhance the quality of the Board, there is NO doubt that
compensation will be an important element in fielding strong candidates.
The days of Board volunteerism should be a quaint aspect of ICANN's first
ten years of existence.  Going forward, ICANN must establish itself as the
institution it is expected to become and appropriately compensating the
Board and Chair will be critical in achieving that.

 

Finally, considering that this issue has been discussed and debated by all
manner of Board committees and within the greater ICANN community for some
3-4 years now, as we have noted on many occasions, we strongly support our
current (soon to be 'past') Chair receiving his full honorarium
retroactively for each year that he has served as Chairman of ICANN. 

 

Thank you for your consideration.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

RA

 

Ronald N. Andruff

RNA Partners, Inc.

 

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, RNA Partners intends to apply for a
new gTLD when the application period opens.