[LINK] ICANN names new CEO

[Jan Whitaker]

http://www.9news.com/money/273881/344/Internet-group-picks-little-known-executive-as-CEO

NEW YORK (AP) - A businessman with experience in building consensus 
will be the next CEO of the Internet agency in charge of contentious 
policies surrounding Internet addresses.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is 
pushing through a major change in the way Web and email addresses are 
structured and assigned, announced Fadi Chehade's appointment Friday. 
He will replace former U.S. cybersecurity chief Rod Beckstrom as 
chief executive.

In selecting Chehade, ICANN went with someone who isn't well known 
and isn't well versed in the organization's core tasks - keeping the 
Internet address system running smoothly.

Chehade does, however, have a knack for diplomacy. In the early days 
of e-commerce, he persuaded leading tech companies such as IBM and 
Hewlett-Packard to collaborate on a system called RosettaNet for 
exchanging data, even as they competed for customers. ICANN Chairman 
Steve Crocker said those achievements outweighed the drawbacks.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of the 
announcement, Chehade, 50, said his work at RosettaNet prepared him 
for the new role.

"The thrill and the satisfaction of bringing people around some 
common understanding is tremendous," Chehade said. "I have a personal 
and deep love of bringing consensus."

He said that when executive recruiters contacted him about the 
position at ICANN, "I immediately had flashbacks of how much I 
enjoyed doing a job that everybody told me was impossible and difficult."

As CEO, Chehade will receive a base salary of $560,000 plus up to 
$240,000 in bonuses based on merit. He is tentatively set to start 
Oct. 1. His tenure lasts until July 1, 2015.

Beckstrom leaves ICANN this July 1. Chief Operating Officer Akram 
Atallah will serve as CEO in the interim.

One of Chehade's chief tasks will be guiding the largest expansion of 
the Internet address system since its creation in the 1980s. The 
change affects how people find Web sites or send email and could lead 
to more options for businesses as easy-to-remember ".com" names are 
harder to obtain.

ICANN has received 1,930 proposals for 1,409 different domain name 
suffixes, including ".love," ".google" and ".music." They would rival 
".com" and others now in use. A florist called Apple can't use 
"apple.com" today because the computer company has it, but the shop 
might get "apple.flowers" one day.

Even after a decade of debate, however, the expansion still faces 
criticism, much of it from trademark holders who worry about having 
to police the Internet for addresses that misuse their brands.

"Anything new like this is going to create angst and controversy, and 
it's going to create opportunity," Chehade said.

ICANN is also in charge of assigning the numeric Internet Protocol 
addresses used to identify computers, smartphones and other 
Internet-connected devices. And it faces perennial calls for the 
United Nations to take a greater role in crafting Internet policies. 
Although ICANN has board members from around the world, it is 
headquartered in Los Angeles and gets its authority from the U.S. 
government, which funded much of the Internet's early development.

Chehade has some international experience, having served for a year 
in Dubai as IBM general manager for global technology services for 
the Middle East and North Africa. Born in Lebanon and of Egyptian 
decent, he speaks English, Arabic, French and Italian. He lives in 
Los Angeles and became a U.S. citizen in 1986.

Chehade moved to the U.S. in 1980 at age 18. Smuggled out of Beirut, 
he arrived in Los Angeles with $482 and worked two restaurant jobs 
there before attending Polytechnic Institute of New York on a 
scholarship. After graduating with a computer science degree in 1985, 
he got a master's in engineering management from Stanford University 
a year later.

He worked at Bell Labs before starting a company, Nett Information 
Products, in the early 1990s. The company offered services that used 
Lotus Notes software to let companies collaborate with partners over 
proprietary networks. Ingram Micro Inc., a distributor of 
information-technology products, bought the company in 1996 and 
tasked Chehade with adapting the services to run over the Internet.

It was there that he built software for computers from various 
companies to talk to one another with little human intervention. For 
instance, when CompUSA places an order through 3Com Corp.'s website, 
3Com's computers automatically contact Ingram Micro's machines to 
ship the products to CompUSA.

That system was custom built. Its success prompted Chehade to create 
standards - such as common ways for proprietary systems to define 
shopping baskets - so that it could be used by hundreds or thousands 
of businesses.



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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