A curious email appeared in my inbox this morning. It was titled ‘Concerns at ICANN’, was addressed to the Board, signed ‘A Concerned Employee’, and came through an anonymous Hushmail email account.
Broadly, the email provides, in some detail, this person’s concerns about an influx of management at the domain name system overseer ICANN. It lists nine recent additions to the ICANN staff and highlights their connections to the CEO and COO which range from “former co-worker” to “former neighbor”.
It is widely known that the current CEO and COO worked with one another in the same roles at their previous company. Given the extraordinary complex and fast-moving world that ICANN inhabits, this has been seen by the Internet community as a good thing: a strong personal relationship at the top. But the email argues a significant downside.
“The normal checks and balances that exist between a CEO and COO do not exist at ICANN because of the long standing close and personal relationship between Fadi [Chehade, CEO] and Akram [Atallah, COO],” it states.
It goes on to outline a series of concerns: staff are reluctant to take concerns direct to the CEO; senior hires have not gone through a proper interviewing process; loyalty is valued above competency; groupthink is appearing as a problem.
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