ICANN president and CEO Fadi Chehadé announced the corporation's first hub office will open in Istanbul, Turkey.
ICANN is preparing to spread its operations across three global headquarters, Los Angeles, Istanbul and Singapore. "Hubs" will be fully functional centers of activity instead of just offices. The Istanbul hub office will be led by David Olive, ICANN’s VP for policy development. A number of current ICANN staff will relocate to Istanbul over the coming months and local staff also will be hired.
“ICANN is becoming increasingly international in terms of our outlook, policies and the makeup of our staff. Now our global hub strategy will take our internationalism to an improved operational level,” said Chehadé. “These hub offices will become part of the core fabric of ICANN.”
“We looked closely at a number of possible global locations,” said Fadi Chehadé. “We chose Istanbul because of the quality of its infrastructure, growing ICT sector, business-friendly environment and its close cultural and geographic proximity to Europe, the Middle-East and Africa.”
“ICANN provides efficient and considered management of the Internet’s Domain Name System, and today marks the latest step in the organization’s journey of extending its global influence,” said Binali Yıldırım, Turkey’s Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs, and Communications. “The ICANN European HUB is being established in Istanbul to act as an epicenter that will help shape Internet policy to deliver a more connected community across Europe, Middle East and Africa.”
