ICANN chief Fadi Chehade is resigning. According to an official ICANN statement, Chehade will step down from presidential post in March 2016. He announced his intention “to move into a new career in the private sector (outside the domain name industry).” Upon agreement with the corporation’s board, Chehade will continue collaboration with ICANN after his resignation as a consultant for the board on major issues, including the handover of supervising functions over domain names to the Internet community.
Chehade’s decision was unexpected for the entire Internet community. His first presidential term expires in 2017. Previous ICANN managers traditionally remained in office for two terms. Even more surprising is the fact that Chehade is quitting at a historical moment, without exaggeration. The contract between the US government and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) expires in September. It was expected that the Internet community would immediately take over control of the domains.
Now it is almost certain that this will not happen as new control instruments that would take into account the requests of all interested parties have not been developed. However, the possibility of this happening in the near future is high. Leaving his post, Chehade is losing the chance to go down in history as the ICANN CEO who made the transition happen.
Experts say there are two possible reasons for Chehade’s resignation. He either received an offer so much more rewarding that it was unreasonable to turn it down, or he was tired of endless difficulties and of having to balance the interests of various parties that often contradict one another. Analysts also note that, despite some negative issues, Chehade’s presidency has generally been quite a successful period for ICANN – first and foremost, as under his management, the corporation became more of a professional business than an amateurish public organization.
Commenting Chehade’s decision, US Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry Strickling, who initiated the handover of the domain control to the Internet community a year ago, noted his contribution to the improvement of ICANN. At the same time, Strickling stressed that the handover of the supervisory functions cannot be tied to a specific leader and must remain the focus of the entire Internet community. Steve Crocker, the chairman of the board of ICANN, also expressed his appreciation for the work done by Fadi Chehade.
