[Chapter-delegates] Board composition (Was Re: Unfortunately, the Internet Impact Toolkit is unsound)

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2020 at 09:56:28AM -0400, Veni Markovski via Chapter-delegates wrote:

>Just to be clear: We are talking about the composition of the Board of
>Trustees, not about the team, who prepared the toolkit.

Indeed, and as Gonzalo already pointed out, the composition of the Board of Trustees is entirely up to the communities who appoint those Trustees.  Trustees regularly raise this issue of concern within the Board.  The Elections Committee and the Nominations Committee report on these issues and the Nominations Committee (which is not made exclusively of Trustees) appears to me to work pretty hard to get the word out.  But it would be wrong for Trustees to intervene aggressively in the elections, given the potential for people to see that as sitting Trustees attempting to perpetuate themselves.  I observe that, if the concern is overrepresentation from the US, this year the chapters actually increased that representation by 1, by replacing two chapter-selected Trustees from outside the US with two Trustees one of whom is from the US.  I have no opinion about whether that is a good or bad thing, for I believe my duty is to support the community's decision.  I nevertheless think it is an area that this community needs to acknowledge is squarely under its own control.

If there is something more that the community thinks the Board ought to be doing about the issue of the composition of the Board -- keeping in mind that people also often worry about Boards being self-perpetuating -- I suggest it might be something that people would want to discuss in the Governance Reform Working Group that I'm expecting to kick off really soon.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO, Internet Society
sullivan at isoc.org
+1 416 731 1261