[Chapter-delegates] Notes from the Board in response to recent question

[Ted Hardie]

Dear delegates and other list members,

First, let me thank everyone who has reached out to engage with the board.
I can’t give full answers to all of the questions from the recent email
threads yet, but the board has discussed some of them and I wanted to
reflect those now.

The ISOC UK chapter asked about the establishment of a separate board for
the ISOC Foundation.  Currently, the governance of the foundation is
separate from the governance of the ISOC board and it has independent
committees, reports, and strategy development.  The same individuals are,
however, on both boards.  There has been periodic discussion of whether
that should change; given the recent change in the scope of the
Foundation’s work as a supporting organization, the board does not intend
to make this change now.  It is, instead, considering whether to add
outside advisors to the Foundation’s Strategic Advisory Committee; this
would require a change to the charter (the current charter is available
here:
https://www.isocfoundation.org/board-of-trustees/committees/strategic-advisory-committee/).
If we move forward with this, these outside advisors would share these
duties with the Trustee members of the committee:

   -

   Provide advice on Foundation-wide and program area strategy to the
   Executive Director, as requested;
   -

   Provide advice to the Executive Director on questions and metrics for
   the Foundation’s programs;
   -

   Review progress on the Foundation’s programs once every quarter with the
   Executive Director and provide advice based on emerging insights;
   -

   Provide other strategic advice, as requested by the Executive Director.

The board believes that this step might help provide beneficial outside
perspectives without requiring the outside advisors to be deeply involved
in the work of the Foundation as a supporting organization.

The ISOC UK also asked a question about CEO renewal. The board recognizes
that strong leadership is critical to advancing Internet Society’s mission
and it has had CEO Succession plans in place since Kathy Brown's tenure as
CEO.  The CEO Succession Planning Committee is the group currently charged
to consider CEO renewal, and it has worked since its inception to ensure
that a strong leadership continuity plan is in place to enable ISOC to
continue its work in now and in the future.  The committee continuously
maintains a CEO profile, identifies and develops ISOC’s talent base, and
updates and prioritizes key skills and capabilities essential for
leadership in our industry and in furthering our mission.  The CEO
committee recently gave a report to the board, and the board continues to
consider it.  We will provide further updates on that in due course.  I
will add, however, that the composition of the committee (and all of the
committees) is based on a balance of factors, including the committee
workloads of individual members. As a quick look at the overlapping
requirements and exclusions for the different Internet Society shows,
assignment to committees can be difficult.   All recommendations from the
committee are reviewed and approved by the full board, however, and this
will continue to be the case.

The ISOC UK chapter asked about the five year plan for ISOC.  You may
recall that there were a series of consultations on this topic last year,
and I am happy to report that the 5 year strategy was approved at the most
recent board meeting.  Staff are developing the materials for the
distribution of the 5 year strategy now, and I anticipate that those will
be available within a few weeks.

The ISOC New York chapter asked if the board were willing to dedicate a
specific amount of time at each meeting to listening to the chapters.  The
board believes that open forums or community consultations should include
all parts of the community and that these are generally more useful when
they focus on a specific mission-related topic.  The board intends to hold
an open forum as part of the 5 year strategy release, and it is open to
suggestions from the community on other mission-related topics for future
open forums.

The ISOC UK chapter asked about the I* coordination efforts.  As Andrew
noted, there are ongoing staff interactions among the different
organizations, and the CEO-level interactions are limited to moments when
there is a specific challenge.  The board is not aware of any previous
occasion in which the boards of these organizations have jointly developed
a strategy or action plan, and we do not see a challenge rising to that
level of joint action at this time.

The ISOC UK chapter asked about the financial reporting from the Internet
Society.  The board believes ISOC is reporting its financials in line with
regulatory requirements and accepted practice.  The board also notes that
the Internet Society made significant changes to ensure that resources
could be shared across projects, to reduce duplication of effort.
Instituting cross-charging or other time-tracking efforts to produce
detailed project-based reporting seems, at least at this point in time,
like it might lose some of those gains.

As the board continues its discussion, I or another member of the board
will continue to provide updates.  Thanks again for your engagement and for
your dedication to the vision and mission of the Society.
best regards,

Ted Hardie
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