[ARIN-consult] Consultation on Expanding the Size of the ARIN Board of Trustees

[Bill Woodcock]

> On Apr 6, 2018, at 2:46 PM, Rob Evans <Rob.Evans at jisc.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
>> Have you identified the specific areas of knowledge that are not present on the existing 7-member board?
> 
> This is a “known unknowns” question, right?

No…  While I agree that the board will certainly face unknown challenges which would benefit from not-currently-anticipatable expertise, there are some basic things that are always helpful: experience running non-profits. Experience participating in other RIR meetings enough to understand their politics and how those will impact ARIN (inter-regional transfers, “global policies,” NRO/IANA stuff, etc.).  Financial management (which expertise Nancy clearly brings to the table, so it’s a good thing she’s serving as treasurer).  A little legal experience, not necessarily as a lawyer, but as someone who’s been responsible for a company that was being sued, or suing, or involved in some sort of intellectual property dispute, gives a little useful perspective.  We have a lot of expertise on the board with the Canadian situation, which differs somewhat from the US one in politics and how networks interrelate; but we have never had similar expertise with regard to the Caribbean, which is equally a part of our region, and differs more from the US in law and network topology and economics than does Canada.  Experience managing the operational budget of an Internet network, such that things like fee structure can be put in context and viewed from a member’s point of view.

All of those are valuable, in my opinion.  We’ve had some of those, but not all of them, on the board thus far.  Thus far the nomcom has done essentially nothing to select slates based on needed criteria, but that’s probably because the nomcom has rarely, if ever, been given very explicit instructions about what would be useful.  So, Cathy’s right about that: the nomcom really needs to do more of the work of making sure that the slate that’s put forward to the voters includes people who can contribute usefully to the board, rather than just people who are popular.  Popular doesn’t count for much when work needs doing.

                                -Bill

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