I’m pleased to announce the appointment of Nick Ashton-Hart Senior Director, Participation and Engagement. This position incorporates the duties of General Manager for Public Participation previously performed by Kieren McCarthy, with some fine-tuning of focus and effort.

ICANN views increasing participation across all stakeholder communities as a strategic priority. This means recruiting new participants in our work, and new communities of interests who are not presently involved, but it also to further empower existing volunteer communities so that all feel their time spent with ICANN is increasingly valuable and effective. ICANN’s participation mechanisms, from public comment processes to meetings to publications, should be world-class – and viewed as such by those who use them; Nick’s job is to ensure that we never accept “good enough” and always look to improve.

In the post-Affirmation ICANN, a program of continuous improvement in these areas is a core objective for all of us. For this reason, another key element of this position will be to help design processes and systems that accelerate the organization down the path of becoming even more volunteer-centric in thinking and action. Nick will make sure that the “bottom up” ethos of ICANN processes and decision-making applies equally to his own work in developing participation and engagement efforts.

I hope you’ll join in welcoming Nick to this new and challenging role; I’m confident he will do a great job!