For almost two years now, the Nominet, which manages the UK national domain, has been rocked by scandals. The next one is reported by the Domain Incite. As it turns out, a book is being published in April by Russell Haworth, the former CEO of the Nominet, whose leadership has led to the current series of problems. In April 2021, an emergency extraordinary meeting of registry members was held. The main item on his agenda was the dismissal of the leadership of the organization, headed by Haworth, due to inefficient work and misappropriation of funds. However, Russell Haworth himself did not wait for the meeting, having left his post a week before it, since the result of the vote seemed too obvious.
However, shortly before that, he signed a contract with Forbes publishing division to publish his book “Thinking from the big chair: A guide to digital transformation for leaders”. How the author himself has succeeded in digital transformation is best shown by the following fact. During Hayworth's leadership, the Nominet registry took a course to diversify its business and acquired CyGlass, a company specializing in network and information security. The purchase and subsequent investment in CyGlass cost Nominet $23.5 million. In the summer of 2021, the deal was declared unsuccessful, and the registry sold CyGlass to company employees for $1.
Of course, there were objective reasons for the failure, for example, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. And in general, to write and publish at your own expense a book about your own successes (no matter real or imaginary) is the right of any person. The problem, however, is that Hayworth did not publish the book at his own expense. The amount of 135 thousand pounds was paid to Forbes from the Nominet budget. The current head of the registry, Andy Green, told the Nominet board that he was not aware of this situation and only became aware of it at the end of December. He also added that he would hardly have approved such a deal if he had the necessary powers at the time of its conclusion, but now it is not possible to terminate the contract and return the money.
