[Chapter-delegates] Fwd: Proposed agenda for ISOC CEO and ISOC UK England Leadership Team meeting - 20 Feb 2024

Wed Feb 14 09:35:46 PST 2024

Dear colleagues,

Many thanks to the UK England Chapter for these questions.

The first two of them, on the topic of the CEO renewal and on the topic of the governance of the Internet Society Foundation, are both properly speaking, in my opinion, questions better directed to the Board of Trustees.  The best way to do that is to mail board-chair at isoc.org; the chair will then consult with the board and prepare an answer according to the views of the board.

One thing I will note is the suggestion that there could be a "conflict of interest" between the Internet Society Foundation and the Internet Society.  This is not really possible; or rather, were it to happen, the conflict would necessarily be resolved in favour of the Internet Society.  The Foundation is what's called a supporting organization of the Internet Society, and so under US tax law it must work in the interests of the charity it supports (in this case, the Internet Society).

I look forward to the discussions on the other topics, and will cheerfully share my understanding of what I discussed with the chapter once this meeting has taken place.

Best regards,

A

On Fri, Feb 09, 2024 at 03:31:30PM +0100, Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via Chapter-delegates wrote:
>Dear Chapter Leaders,
>
>the UK England Chapter of the Internet Society has been kindly invited 
>to meet the ISOC CEO Andrew Sullivan during his visit in London later 
>this month. We have put together an agenda which you will see below. 
>If we have any time remaining in our meeting we would be happy to add 
>other topics of interest to Chapters - thus please email me if you 
>would like to propose additional topics.
>We'll report back to Chapters on matters that might have a wider 
>Chapters interest after our meeting.
>Kindest regards,
>
>Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
>ISOC UK England Chair
>
>
>-------- Forwarded Message --------
>Subject: 	Proposed agenda for ISOC CEO and ISOC UK England Leadership 
>Team meeting - 20 Feb 2024
>Date: 	Fri, 9 Feb 2024 15:20:15 +0100
>From: 	Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>
>To: 	Andrew Sullivan <sullivan at isoc.org>
>CC: 	ISOC England <contact at isoc-e.org>
>
>
>
>Dear Andrew,
>
>thank your for inviting us to meet you on Tuesday 20 February 2024. 
>Matthew Shears, Steve Karmeinski and I look forward to welcome you in 
>London.
>
>In order to prepare for the discussion, our Leadership Team has put 
>together a number of questions which you will find listed below. These 
>should be treated as the topics we would like to discuss during our 
>meeting. We'll share these with other Chapter Leaders, asking if they 
>have any further questions/topics which we might wish to add to our 
>agenda, time-permitting.
>
>In order to put some structure in our discussions, there are four main 
>section topics:
>
>1. CEO renewal
>2. Internet Society Foundation
>3. ISOC's future
>4. Operational Issues
>
>We look forward to an open discussion on all four topics. If you have 
>additional topics for discussion please share them with us ahead of 
>our meeting.
>
>Topic 1: CEO renewal
>
>Given the need to expand the global reputation and footprint of the 
>Internet Society, the search for the next CEO should respect the 
>processes set in the past as well as well accepted good practise
>found in other important Internet organisations.
>
>This process should be tasked by the BoT to improve awareness and 
>engagement of the global communities in the Internet Society and its 
>operations and ensure to the community that basic principles of good 
>governance including transparency are evident.
>
>We therefore have the following questions relating to the topic of CEO 
>renewal:
>
>1.1 Do you already know if the Board going to renew your contract?
>
>1.2 If not when will process for the CEO search be started?
>
>1.3 Is there an already existing process in place for the search of 
>the next CEO?
>1.3.1 if yes, then is it based on the last search for ISOC CEO which 
>used a global selection process open to qualification by non-US 
>residents?
>1.3.2 if no, then will the community be asked for:
>  a. best practices relating to the actual search for a CEO?
>  b. the list of qualities required in the next CEO?
>(as is already common process in other I* organisations?)
>
>1.4 In the current climate of Government regulation worldwide would 
>you agree that people with known close ties to governments should be 
>excluded from being candidates as they are unlikely to inspire 
>confidence in ISOC's independence in representative roles other than 
>purely secretariat?
>
>1.5 Currently the Board Succession Planning Committee is made of:
>Ramanou Biaou - Chapters
>Luis Martinez - Chapters
>Brian Haberman - IETF
>Ted Hardie - Organisation
>Barry Leiba - Organisation
>Robert Pepper - Organisation
>Andrew Sullivan - Ex-Officio
>
>This, if it is indeed the next CEO Search Committee, appears 
>unbalanced between Chapters, IETF and Organisation members? Wouldn't 
>good practise mean balancing this out by having two members from each 
>IETF, Chapters and Organisation?
>
>1.6 Will the whole Board interview candidates or will it just be 
>the Board Succession Planning Committee?
>
>1.7 Will the whole Board be voting on the final candidate(s), given 
>that this has been a vital task of the Board in past CEO selections? 
>The whole board consists of: 4 Chapter Trustees, 4 Org Trustees and 4 
>IETF Trustees (plus a nominated trustee) and each of them has one 
>equal vote.
>
>
>Topic 2: Internet Society Foundation
>
>ISOC's intentions on formation of the Foundation was to establish a 
>separate Board and governance for the Foundation. It was proposed that 
>the current arrangement of ISOC trustees also all being Foundation 
>Trustees as only viable as a stop gap. The evolution of the governance 
>of the Foundation appears to have stalled since the attempted sale of 
>PIR.
>
>Given that the current arrangement causes a serious conflict of 
>interest between the organisations:
>
>2.1 What are the current steps being made to move this along? When 
>will a new Board be selected?
>
>2.2 What processes to involve the broader community are being undertaken?
>
>
>Topic 3: ISOC's future
>
>It is notable that in relation to other Internet organisations 
>referred to as I* including IETF, ICANN, IAB, Regional Internet 
>Registries. ISOC alone today has no operational responsibilities for 
>Internet resources, networks, or governance communities. This has 
>frequently led to comments by operators in those communities to ask 
>"What is the point of ISOC"?
>
>3.1 What is the Point of ISOC today and into the next five years in 
>the CEO's view?
>3.1.1 Is there a 5 year strategic plan in place?
>
>3.2 2024 Action Plan
>https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2024-Action-Plan-EN.pdf
>
>Focussing on two topics:
>3.2.1 countering Internet threats
>3.2.1.1 What kind of threats are in the cross-wires of this action 
>item? Threats from UN? Globally? Individual Governments (at national 
>level)? Regionally (for example European Commission)? Private Sector 
>(for example Network Neutrality or consolidation of Internet resources 
>and monopolies)? There number of threats to the Internet are numerous.
>3.2.1.2 At what "layer" are these threats mostly going to be?
>3.2.1.3 How are these threats going to be decided? Which threat is 
>"more important"? Which threat has priority?
>
>3.2.2 defending the Internet in the UN.
>This outward facing element of ISOC's advocacy has been missing in the 
>past and it would be good to understand what this will comprise, 
>particularly w/r/t IG.
>Could you please elaborate on what processes will be followed? IGF? 
>WSIS? UNGA (with the UN Digital Cooperation Forum)? ECOSOC? UNESCO?
>
>3.2.3 Is ISOC planning to reinvigorate the I* and working with the 
>Internet technical community as a whole to mitigate these challenges?
>
>3.3 ISOC Financials
>https://www.internetsociety.org/about-internet-society/organization-reports/#financial-reports
>2022 Financial Statements show the Internet Society making a loss for 
>that year.
>
>3.3.1 Is there oversight and reporting that is specific to keeping 
>track of the proportion of .org revenues being spent on internal 
>administration and staff compared to funding community works?
>The annual financial statements do not show this.
>3.3.2 With other I* organisations providing detailed information about 
>the management of their projects as well as per department 
>cross-referencing, is ISOC prepared to rise up to the levels of 
>transparency that are now expected in public benefit entities and to 
>produce an annual financial report that provides more information than 
>its minimal published financial statement?
>3.3.3 Is ISOC ready to publish its financials on multi-year projects 
>including its forecasts going forward? Scrutiny of Form 990 appears to 
>show random continuity year on year and there is no way to find out 
>what is happening?
>
>3.4 MANRS
>ISOC made a total divestment of its MANRS project to a US 
>not-for-profit, The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) which has foundational 
>links to the City Police in UK and other similar agencies.
>
>3.4.1 Why was this divestiture effected given that this was a 
>successful project which comforted the ISOC brand as being pertinent?
>
>3.4.2 Was a risk assessment done prior to moving MANRS elsewhere to an 
>organisation so close to law enforcement as to ensuring that the 
>Internet Society goals and principles in this important area remain at 
>the top of the routing security agenda?
>
>3.4.3 By what criteria was the GCA chosen as an suitable organisation 
>to run the MANRS project? Were there conditions imposed on Goals?
>
>3.4.4 Are there Performance Agreements (SLAs) in place for the ongoing 
>conditional funding of the GCA?
>3.4.4.1 If yes, are there clauses to cancel the GCA Secretarial and 
>Operational duties, should it fail in its SLAs?
>
>3.5 Concept of the Internet Society holding network related patents
>
>In a recent conversation on the Internet History Mailing List, Karl 
>Auerbach proposed that ISOC or the IETF established an arm that could 
>accept and hold network related patents and issue licenses (for 
>reasonable low fees and non-discriminatory terms). Vint Cerf replied 
>that he liked the idea and that the concept of ISOC being compensated 
>for doing so could ease its challenge demonstrating the level of 
>public support it has (the so-called IRS Public Support Test) that 
>requires it to show that at least 1/3 of its income comes from a broad 
>range of public sources.
>Would you consider this as a potential responsibility to evolve ISOC?
>
>
>Topic 4: Operational Issues
>
>4.1 New Chapter Membership Administration System
>
>After more than one month in existence it is clear that the new 
>Chapter Membership Administration System is failing to achieve the 
>functions it was meant to achieve:
>a. emailing members
>b. hosting fora for community discussions like the Chapter Advisory 
>Council discussions and other fora
>
>To-date the failure of the emailing system is such that even ISOC 
>Staff have been unable to use it for any campaign whatsoever.
>The discussion fora are completely empty. The porting of old 
>discussions has lost all formatting, attached documents etc. Functions 
>like the emailing of the fora discussions are non existent.
>The system appears to require lots of pre-established templates none 
>of which are available.
>The list of problems is too long to list here but the result is a loss 
>of community history as well as a complete hindrance on membership 
>management at Chapter level. ISOC is without a communications tool - a 
>tool that should have been at the centre of its operations and that 
>has failed to deliver.
>
>4.1.1 What is ISOC planning to do to fix this serious problem?
>4.1.2 How long will it take to fix?
>4.1.3 If the system is "born dead" would ISOC consider finding an 
>alternative system and dropping the current system on the basis that 
>it is a failure and immediately proposing an alternative?
>
>4.2 Relationship between Chapters and HQ in matters of national importance
>
>4.2.1 Does ISOC have a rulebook regarding engagement relating to 
>Internet policy and advocacy in countries where there is a local 
>Chapter?
>4.2.2 How does ISOC align itself with the positions taken by a local 
>chapter in a specific territory when ISOC in intervening directly in 
>that territory? For example, your visit in the UK is triggered by your 
>participation at a conference. How will you align your narrative with 
>the Chapter's narrative?
>
>--- end of agenda ---
>
>Thank you for considering these topics. We look forward to a fruitful 
>meeting with you.
>Safe travels,
>
>Olivier Crépin-Leblond, PhD
>ISOC UK England Chair
>_______________________________________________
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-- 
Andrew Sullivan, President & CEO, Internet Society
e:sullivan at isoc.org m:+1 416 731 1261
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