[At-Large] [BMSPC-2020] Board seat 15 selection

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Thu, 21 Nov 2019 at 16:00, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
wrote:

> Karl, over the years, I have quite often disagreed with your posts.
> In this case, I strongly support everything you said here (and
> appreciate the Roger Rabbit reference!  :-)  ).



Absolutely agreed with Alan (and thus Karl).

One thing that intrigues me about the post-2000 ICANN structure is the
Nominating Committee. On most other orgs in which I have participated (and
some for which I'm the primary bylaw author) the Nominating Committee
produces a slate of candidates for the available positions from which an
electorate chooses.  In some orgs (such as CIRA) there are also open
nominations for a second slate of candidates from which a minority of Board
positions are elected. (This makes up for the inability of a virtual org to
have "nominations from the floor").

In ICANN there is a NomCom but no electorate, so it's not really a
nomination committee but a selection committee. The people it annoints
slide right into their positions without any extra processes. This is
highly unusual, and it means that the NomCom really over-vets its
candidates. Part of me thinks that a combination of a *real* nominating
committee, combined with a broad global electorate, could produce a board
with both a collection of sane candidates and a public mandate.

The  sad truth is that ICANN (and as we've found out recently, ISOC) have
no actual external stakeholders. In a for-profit the fiduciary duty is to
stakeholders. In a normal nonprofit the fiduciary duty is to the
stakeholders. In ICANN and ISOC, there is no external accountability so the
fiduciary duty is soley to the institution itself. If this is an innovation
of governance it's one I can do without.

- Evan
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