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ICANN Vice President to head up major European Project 'Galileo' unit

7 June 2005

ICANN's Vice President for Policy Support, Paul Verhoef, currently on secondment to the ICANN Brussels office, has today been appointed by the European Commission to the post of head of unit for Project 'Galileo' and Intelligent Transport in the Directorate General for Energy and Transport.

ICANN CEO & President Dr. Paul Twomey noted that "Paul Verhoef has made an invaluable contribution to ICANN and the Internet community, helping spearhead our European office and further internationalize our policy development support. This move represents a very significant opportunity for Paul, to project manage the Europe Commission's most expensive and significant initiative: the development of a satellite global positioning system. Reluctantly, we will be saying goodbye to him as he takes up his new position at the beginning of July."

European Commission Director General Fabio Colasanti further added "while this brings his work for ICANN to an ender sooner than we had anticipated, it is a significant career development for Mr. Verhoef. It will build on his international experience with ICANN over the last year, and on his two years of work as head of unit for international affairs in DG Information Society. The Galileo satellite global positioning system is, as you know, a European project of major significance, and its success will bring with it major economic, industrial and societal benefits. I am sure you will agree with me that the European Commission has made a wise choice in nominating Mr. Verhoef to take up this challenge."

Fabio Colasanti went on to say "we have very much appreciated the better mutual understanding that has developed between our two organisations. We are committed to ensuring that these positive relations continue in this area which is so essential for the development of the information society."

"I am very pleased with the close interaction between the European Commission and ICANN," said Twomey. "I wish Paul every success in his new role."

ICANN's Policy Support is pivotal to the Internet community and the permanent position of ICANN Vice-President for Policy Support is currently being sought and will continue to be based in ICANN's Brussels office. The job posting is available to view on-line at www.icann.org/general/jobs.htm/. In the interim, Anne-Rachel Inne will manage ICANN's external relationships in Europe. A short-term position of Counselor for Policy Support is being appointed in Brussels to support the recently formed policy support team, while the search for Paul Verhoef's full time replacement is undertaken.

About ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. As a private-public partnership, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and to developing policy appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.

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