Laura.Hutchison

My role is in Nominet’s international policy function. I am responsible for building and maintaining relationships with external stakeholders, government and regulatory representatives. I lead the coordination of the UK-Internet Governance Forum which is a collaborative partnership that provides a local forum in the UK to engage industry, government, parliament, academia and civil society in debate on Internet Governance issues. I am responsible for coordinating the stakeholder committee to shape the agenda, managing the organisation of sessions to ensure balanced representation to achieve productive dialogue plus working to secure high level participation from a range of stakeholders including Ministers, MPs and senior industry figures.

I regularly coordinate conference programmes for MP and Board delegations - identifying, securing and briefing them on related bilateral meetings as well as key conference sessions.

As part of this role, from 2008-2014 I coordinated a cross company team overseeing the running of the Nominet internet awards. I reviewed and shaped the awards categories each year, including instigating a major re-brand in 2010, to ensure they provided Nominet with the best possible examples of UK best practice and remained relevant to current societal concerns. I was responsible for ensuring the overall smooth running of the awards, and overseeing the team organising the marketing and promotion and the evening event. I have managed the shortlisting process and external judging panel which included senior industry figures, civil servants, journalists and MPs.