ICANN's Board of Directors has selected Kurt Erik “Kurtis” Lindqvist as the corporation's new President and CEO. Tripti Sinha, Chair of the ICANN Board of Directors, announced this at the ICANN80 Policy Forum, which began in Rwanda.
“Kurtis’ vision, values and commitment to preserving a single, globally interoperable Internet align extraordinarily well with ICANN’s goals and strategic plans,” Sinha continued.
“His extensive industry experience, as well as his exceptional leadership, political and technical skills will enable him to successfully collaborate with the staff, Board and ICANN community to fulfil ICANN’s mission.”
Kurt Erik Lindquist has 30 years of experience in business development for Internet service providers and telecom operators around the world, as well as extensive experience in the ICANN community. From 2002 to 2015, he was the CEO of the Swedish company Netnod, which operates several traffic exchange points, as well as one of thirteen DNS root servers. In addition, from 2004 to 2020, Lindqvist was Chairman of the Board of Euro-IX. Since 2016, he has been working at the London Internet Exchange (LINX), and since 2019 he has been its head. Kurt Lindqvist's active involvement in the Internet community includes serving on the Internet Architecture Board and chairing RIPE and IETF working groups.
Kurt Lindqvist will officially take office on December 5, and until then Sally Costerton will continue to serve as interim President and CEO of ICANN.
As a reminder, Göran Marby resigned in December 2022, and ICANN began searching for a new leader in April 2023. Lindqvist's appointment concludes a lengthy global search process. A total of 100 candidates were selected from 20 countries in the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. After a rigorous selection process and interviews, three finalists were identified, and at a meeting on June 8, the Board of Directors unanimously selected Kurt Lindqvist as President and CEO of the Corporation.
