Craig Schwartz

Affiliation:	ICANN
Country:	USA
Website:	[fTLD.com fTLD.com]
LinkedIn:	[Craig Schwartz Craig Schwartz]

Craig Schwartz served as Chief gTLD Registry Liaison of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from August 2006 until June 2011. His position entailed serving as the liaison between ICANN and its gTLD Registries. Schwartz left his position at ICANN and joined BITS, the technical policy division of The Financial Services Roundtable as General Manager, Registry Programs. The Financial Services Roundtable and the American Bankers Association in 2011 formed fTLD Registry Services, LLC (fTLD). In 2012, fTLD submitted community-based applications for the .bank and .insurance gTLDs.

Career History

From November 1996 to March 2006, Schwartz worked for Widmeyer Communications as Vice-President of Operations. From 1993 until 1996, prior to his position at Widmeyer, he served as Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Public Affairs & Development of the Youth for Understanding (YFU) International Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting global understanding through student exchange programs. From 1990 until 1993, he worked for Westinghouse Savannah River Company as Records Management Specialist and from 1987 until 1990, he served as Business Analyst for Dunn and Bradstreet.[3]

Reaction to Schwartz Resignation from ICANN

During the 41st ICANN International public meeting in Singapore in June 2011, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom expressed his fears that the Internet governing body may lose highly qualified staffers due to the implementation of the new gTLD programs in 2012, as companies were tapping well-experienced individuals in the domain industry (including ICANN employees) to lead their new gTLD applications. The first ICANN staff member to resign was Schwartz, who had served ICANN for five years. At nearly the same time, Peter Dengate Thrush, then ICANN’s Chairman of the Board, resigned his position and became Executive Chairman of Top Level Domain Holdings Ltd., which is the parent company of Minds + Machines. Chairman Thrush’s departure from ICANN was the primary impetus that led the Internet community to call for the improvement and revisions of ICANN's ethics policies. The Association of National Advertisers, Coalition for Online Accountability, International Trademark Association, American IP Law Association and the French, USA, and European governments asked ICANN to revise its conflict of interest policy and suggested the implementation of a revolving-door prevention policy.

Education

Mr. Schwartz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Maryland at College Park.