ICANN has announced a replacement for Allen Grogan.
Grogan had been the head of Contractual Compliance, but announced several months ago that he was leaving the organisation.
With today’s announcement ICANN fills the position quite quickly, though whether or not the appointment of one of their existing senior staff makes sense or not remains to be seen. Jamie Hedlund had been heading up ICANN’s Washington DC office as well as taking point on US governmental affairs in DC. Hedlund earns in excess of $355k a year according to ICANN’s financial filings (see page 9), so moving him to a new role seems like a prudent decision in a post-IANA transition ICANN. However the role he’s filling will be quite different than the one he held up until now. As head of Compliance he’ll be dealing a lot more with registrars, registries and those who feel that ICANN isn’t doing as much to “regulate” as they should.
Duncan Burns, who is currently head of communications, will be taking over Hedlund’s previous duties. It’s not clear from the announcement if Burns will remain in charge of communications.
