[ARIN-consult] Fwd: [arin-announce] Consultation on Increasing the Size of the ARIN Board of Trustees

Tue Mar 1 20:15:26 EST 2022

diversity of perspective?

v

On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 7:11 PM Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com> wrote:

> Hi Ted,
>
> I appreciate your general feelings about diversity, but diversity of
> thought is really the significant factor.
> I don't think diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or
> any of that matters in decisions about the stewardship of numbers.
> But diversity of thought is different and I don't think superficial
> diversity is the desire here, although I concur it may have been in the
> past.
>
> In addition to diversity of thought, one of the reasons offered for this
> change was protection from board capture.
> Although you may be right about difficulties reaching consensual decisions
> with larger boards, and those difficulties making larger boards appear
> conservative, I find that as organizations grow larger they actually grow
> less conservative as a rule. We could argue that point.
>
> But the advantages gained by making board capture more difficult outweigh
> the disadvantages associated with slower decision-making.
> And advantages of true diversity of thought and relevant experience are
> even more important.
>
> A board of only six members is very easy to capture and in the workings of
> the last NomCom I detected a real danger of that happening at ARIN.
>
> I take it at face value that the current and prior boards were honestly
> interested in reviewing ARIN governance and that this recommendation
> resonates with more than just a hired consultant but with the board members
> who commissioned the review.
>
> I am not a fan of ARIN expanding its number stewardship responsibilities
> beyond what is minimally necessary. I am not a fan of the board making
> charitable donations or spending lots of money on items tangential to
> number stewardship but some of the issues mentioned below do intersect with
> those responsibilities. Included among these are cybersecurity, risk
> management, and legal issues associated with the registration of
> increasingly valuable resources. These are issues the earliest boards may
> not have had to deal with, but these have become important today, and
> likely there will be other issues that arise in the future.
>
> It makes sense with proliferating duties to have a larger board, and
> additionally the protection afforded against board capture lead me to
> support this increase in board size.
>
> Regards,
> Mike Burns
>
>
>
>
>
> ---- On Tue, 01 Mar 2022 16:06:25 -0500 *Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net
> <tedm at ipinc.net>>* wrote ----
>
> Yes, this sort of thing is all the rage today. It's a big fad.
> Predictably the phrase "Increase diversity of thought on issues
> impacting the community" was included as a poison pill.
>
> Anyone arguing against the idea is immediately labeled as being against
> the magic "diversity" word and thus a bigot and racist and so has lost
> the argument before they even make it.
>
> You might consider that a hired consultant who says "thank you for that
> fat check you gave me, the reality is you are doing nothing wrong and
> don't need any of my suggestions" is going to be viewed as a scammer
> at worst, and a stupid waste of money at best. Management consultants
> ALWAYS recommend changes. You could hire a consulting firm to study
> the most successful and profitable company in the world and they would
> find something wrong.
>
> Go ahead if you want. It just means that even less will get done
> since in general the more members on any sort of governing committee or
> team, the more conservative it is, and the harder it is to arrive at
> a consensus.
>
> https://hbr.org/2009/05/why-teams-dont-work
>
> In another decade the next consultant will recommend shrinking the board
> so it really doesn't matter what you do now.
>
> Ted Mittelstaedt
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: [arin-announce] Consultation on Increasing the Size of the ARIN
> Board of Trustees
> Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2022 13:54:35 -0500
> From: ARIN <info at arin.net>
> To: arin-announce at arin.net <arin-announce at arin.net>
>
> The Board of Trustees maintains authority over the scope, mission, and
> along with the President and Chief Executive Officer establishes ARIN’s
> strategic direction and fiscal oversight. The Board also has oversight
> authority of the nomination, appointment, and election of individuals to
> Board committees and similar roles.
> Over the past two years, as part of its fiduciary duties, the ARIN Board
> of Trustees (“Board”) has undertaken a review of ARIN’s governance
> structures, including the size of the Board. As part of this effort, an
> independent, outside consultant was engaged to review ARIN’s governance
> structures and provide recommendations.
> One recommendation from this governance review is to increase the size
> of the Board to strengthen its capacity to provide strategic and fiscal
> oversight of ARIN. Increasing the Board size will:
> 1. Increase the range and depth of overlapping skills and governance
> experience on the Board to augment its capability. Specific areas for
> strengthening include cybersecurity, risk management, finance, legal,
> technology and strategic oversight. This will require more than 6
> elected seats at the board table to provide this experience.
>
> 2. Increase diversity of thought on issues impacting the community,
> limit the possibility of board capture, and balance the time commitment
> required of our community volunteers.
>
> 3. Ensure sufficient board capacity to engage in more focused, efficient
> governance activities, including participation in these additional
> valuable committees (e.g. Governance, Risk & Cybersecurity, and Strategy
> & Foresight) to manage the work and oversight duties of the Board, and
> to take on work that is requested by, and important to, the community as
> it evolves.
>
> The budgetary impact will not be material, as the only increased costs
> would be for travel costs involved in attending in-person Board
> meetings. The number of Board members travelling to any RIR meeting
> would not change.
>
> Board Proposal
>
> ARIN will increase the number of elected voting seats of the Board from
> six to nine. The currently available appointed voting seat would be
> removed.
>
> The additional Board seats would be added in a staggered format with one
> additional seat for election in each of the upcoming election cycles
> starting with the 2022 election period.
> ARIN seeks community feedback on this proposed increase to the size of
> the Board. This consultation will remain open for 15 days.
>
> Please provide comments to arin-consult at arin.net. You can subscribe to
> this mailing list at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-consult.
>
> Discussion on arin-consult at arin.net will close on 15 March 2022.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)
>
>
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