Fadi Chehadé

Country:	USA
LinkedIn:	[fadichehade Fadi Chehadé]
Currently a member of the ICANN Board Featured in the ICANN 45 - Toronto playing card deck

Fadi Chehadé is the current President and CEO of ICANN. He was originally set to take over from the Interim CEO Akram Atallah on October 1, 2012, but he started the position two weeks early, on September 14.

Fadi's first introduction to an ICANN crowd came in June 2012 at ICANN 44 in Prague, Czech Republic, where he introduced himself in a speech during the Opening Ceremony. He replaced former CEO Rod Beckstrom.

ICANN

CEO Search

Fadi Chehadé was selected to replace Rod Beckstrom as ICANN's CEO, through the work of a CEO Search Committee . The topic of CEO succession planning was first discussed at an Board meeting on 17 September 2011, where they directed the Board Governance Committee to appoint members to a CEO Search Process Management Work Committee. In January 2012, ICANN began openly advertising the position in places such as The Economist. It was reported on February 21st, several days after the application period ended, that Odgers Berndtson had collected more than 100 applications for the position, with candidates coming in from community referrals, the ad in The Economist, and the firm's outreach. The firm then interviewed 27 of these applicants and submitted the results to the CEO Search Committee. The Committee proceeded to interview 16 of these candidates via teleconference, and planned to interview a subset of this group face to face. Following the face to face interviews, the Committee planned to present a smaller subset for intensive interviewing by the ICANN Board. The Committee anticipated that the Board would announce its final decision by mid-April. By late March, the pool was narrowed down to six applicants and by the beginning of April, the pool had been narrowed to four, none of which had any hands-on experience with ICANN.

It was announced at ICANN 44 on Friday, June 22nd, that the new CEO would be Fadi Chehade.

ICANN 44 Prague

Mr. Chehadé first introduced himself when he was still the "incoming" CEO at ICANN 44 in Prague. That meeting marked the last conference of outgoing CEO Rod Beckstrom, who officially left the organization a few days later. The ICANN 44 was also addressed by interim CEO Akram Atallah, who mostly promised to steer the organization, focusing on new gTLDs, and prepare it for Mr. Chehadé without creating new disturbances or distractions. Mr. Chehadé stresses that he would asses the needs of ICANN from the outside over the coming months so that he can facilitate genuine consensus within the ICANN community. He promised to manage ICANN Staff with a very decision-driven mindset. He stressed two observations he had already made; the first is that ICANN is an international organization, and that it must strive to be more international. The second observation was that all his work will be mute if the organization does not deliver "excellence." At the close of his speech he made 3 pledges, they are:

1. "I will listen"
2. "I will be very transparent" ... "super transparent" ... "extra transparent"
3. "I will make all my decisions for the public interest"

Assuming the CEO Position

ICANN announced on September, 14, 2012 that Mr. Chehadé has officially stepped into his role as CEO, which it pointed out was 2 weeks ahead of the deadline of October 1. Along with this announcement came the news that Mr. Chehadé had already made arrangements to restructure the organization in several ways, including who reports directly to him and the creation of new executive positions.

• Akram Atallah, interim CEO is returning to his role as COO, with expanded responsibilities, which include oversight of Registry and Registrar Services, the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program, and security and other important activities.
• Tarek Kamel, who previously lead the development of ICANN's African strategy as a Senior Advisor to the President, was appointed to the new role of Senior Advisor for Government Affairs, leading all aspects of Government Engagement. He was on the short list of consideration for the ICANN CEO position, which Mr. Chehadé went on to fill. Mr. Kamel will be based in Europe.
• Sally Costerton, was a new hire and was most recently CEO of Hill & Knowlton Public Relations for Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Her new role at ICANN is Head of Stakeholder Relations, which is a role that will incorporate the communications function. She was also on the short list for ICANN CEO. Ms. Costerton will be based in Europe.

All three of these executives are to report directly to Mr. Chehadé. Other executives to report directly to the CEO include: Kurt Pritz, who will assume the role of Chief of Strategy, leaving the role of Senior Vice President; John Jeffrey, General Counsel and Secretary of the ICANN Board; David Olive, Vice President of Policy; Maguy Serad, is to assume the position of VP of Contractual Compliance, being promoted from Senior Director of Contractual Compliance, with her department reporting directly to the CEO as well.

ICANN 45 in Toronto

CEO Chehadé became personally involved in a number of issues at or around ICANN 45. He used the opening ceremony as an hour-long "working" session, wherein he outlined his progress and vision on the biggest issues facing ICANN. He noted that "ICANN cannot continue operating like a start-up", that the organization needed to stop managing defensively, that progress must be seen on long-standing problems such as Whois, and he unveiled a new ICANN online portal, MyICANN. He said in an interview that he would become personally involved in the discussion on the Registrar Accreditation Agreement and the Trademark Clearinghouse.

In an open letter to the community, Chehadé shared a 12-point plan which can be seen here of what he hopes to accomplish between ICANN 45 in Toronto and ICANN 46 in Beijing 2013. Among others issues to be addressed, Chehadé lists the following as top priorities:

1. "Operational excellence" under his new leadership as ICANN's "highest priority";
2. ICANN's delivery "on every aspect of the new gTLD program launch next year" through the creation of a new gTLD servies department and the implementation of Trademark Clearing House;
3. A community effort to resolve longstanding issues of the Whois debate;
4. A plan to "reach consensus on a solid and enforceable Registrar Accreditation Agreement that is fair and balanced."

IGF 2012

Fadi gave an opening speech at the 2012 IGF in Azerbaijan. He reiterated his statement from ICANN 45 that it was "a new season at ICANN"; highlighting his push to make ICANN international through actual engagement, and his new Executive appointments. He noted that ICANN, and his work there, is a way of creating opportunity for education, employment, and innovation for people around the world, especially children.

WCIT 2012

ICANN was officially invited to participate in the ITU's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) 2012. Some believe that ICANN's participation will help organizations, governments, and internet leaders collaborate in a more transparent matter, in direct opposition to criticisms about the ITU's closed-door policies.

ICANN President and CEO Fadi_Chehadé said that he planned to arrive early to collaborate and communicate with attendees. He also laid to rest allegations of an inharmonious relationship between ICANN and the ITU by stating, "There is no war between the ITU and ICANN. There may be confusion, by some members of the community, that believe our roles may be confused; but our roles are clearly separate and well-defined."

New gTLD Program

At his arrival, Mr. Cheahdé made the success of the New gTLD Program a top priority. His assumption of power at the organization was roundly praised but there was also plenty of critics and concerns. One prominent concern came well into his initial foray into the New gTLD Program, in January 2013, when he met with top representative of registry providers at an ICANN regional meeting. At that time he noted a number of problems and obstacles for the program, including maximum staffing capabilities, the feasibility of programming and coding the necessary systems well an on time, and the frenzied pace they are working at in ICANN. He notably said, "Honestly, if it was up to me, I would delay the whole release of new gTLDs by at least a year," and while he went on to explain that wasn't going to happen, the suggestion itself worried some of the community hoping that ICANN could right its course of consistently missed new gTLD deadlines.

Trademark Protections

Senators Patrick Leahy and Chuck Grassley and Congressional Representatives Lamar Smith and John Conyers issued an August 7 letter critizing ICANN's approach to new gTLDs. They criticized ICANN's level of New GTLD outreach, stating that "many members of the public outside the ICANN community are unaware that the New gTLD program is