Thank you for the commencement of true debate
and I clarify to all that our discussions shall not divert to any individual. Its about concerns which broadly are as follows: 1.
An
Election Body shall be responsible for conducting elections -“You cannot be a Judge in your own Cause”. 2.
Guaranteed result, because
of state of origin and distribution of votes with one block based on the
number of IPs procurement, is not a true democracy or bottom-up process. Sadly,
the voting process reflects on the skewed understanding of democracy and shall
be corrected - Internet is the leveller and not the divider;
“one who can afford to procure more IPs can’t have more rights than
the one who can’t” 3.
Specified terms so that all can get the
representation in decision making of Internet policies. Internet
enables/connects any part of the world; the current process is creating incumbency-fresh
thoughts/approach is must for the growth of Internet. Regards
and best wishes, Naresh Ajwani -----Original Message----- Hi Naresh, I respond here as only an interested
community participant. I am not member, nor do I work for a member. I do sit on
a couple of boards that are grounded in both Profit and Not-for-Profit and
cover different industries. So I look at your email with some interest (I'm
fascinated with corporate governance :) . Firstly as you cut-n-pasted from the website:
"Executive Council members shall serve on the Executive Council in their
personal capacity" I have redone your matrix (attached) removing the
country of origin. In light of the RIR, as a service entity for the Internet,
country affiliation shouldn't matter as the EC member would state any conflicts
as required by appropriate director conduct. I have further coloured the EC
members separately (as individuals). Additionally I have removed Paul Wilson
from the matrix as he isn't elected but has a seat due to his employment status
and it's the EC's responsibility modify that. I think this is a more
appropriate way to represent the EC trends. I've also summarised the yearly net change of
the EC in terms of a percentage from the previous year, assuming 1998 as 0%
even though the first EC was in 1996. Do remember that in most circumstances
the EC member holds the position for 2 years. Percentage change as follows: 1998 0% 1999 60% (remember 2 EC positions added) 2000
14% 2001 42% 2002 0% 2003 28% 2004 14% 2005 14% 2006 0% 2007 42% 2008 14% 2009 42% 2010 0% If you want to take the average over the 12
years, the Executive Committee experiences an average 22.5% change. Also, if you take a look at the average
consecutive years of EC members' tenure, it is 3.9 years. Is this in the bounds of being acceptable? Now we get to the fun part.. Since the RIR is
a not-for-profit organisation in place for member benefit, when you are looking
at Board composition there are some risks and benefits you might want to
consider. - Tenure, short v's long (as both a function
of stability AND flexibility) - Talent (are the members selected/elected
based on their talents/perspectives as board members?) - Is talent being upgraded and/or in lieu of
tenure? - Can both majority and minority
shareholders(*) affect the Board composition (*) quoted from a Oxford Law Journal article.
You could substitute "members" here. So what I think you are getting at in an
obtuse manner is that while there seems to be incremental changes to the Board
and that average board tenure isn't excessive you feel the voting mechanism
needs review? From memory Akinori presented in Beijing that
it was up to the members to request a review of current APNIC voting system (in
terms of votes assigned and proxies/preference use). I would think this still
stands. (I would have to check transcripts but I also think it was up to the
members to request a SIG/BoF be formed) When voting systems are evaluated, and in
this case how persons are elected to the EC, there are many aspects to consider
- some are: - what is the state in other like (industry
or responsibility and financial level) organisations - the constituencies involved (are they all
equal/alike in scope) - person/organisational exclusions (who
cannot be nominated) - participation levels - In play systems (current vote weights, and
so forth) - The mechanisms in play and what is required
for change versus the status quo. - How talent is identified/nominated - Any intrinsic or extrinsic factors Cheers Terry
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