The chairman of ICANN until last month, Peter Dengate Thrush, has today been appointed executive chairman of Top Level Domain Holdings, a company that intends to make targeted investments in this space, focusing on both infrastructure technologies and specific top level domains.
âPeter will be an outstanding asset to TLDH. Peter and I have worked together as ICANN participants since its inception, and I am very pleased to welcome him as our executive chairman,â said Antony Van Couvering, TLDHâs chief executive officer.
âPeter championed successfully the approval of the new [generic top-level domain] programme at the highest levels and with Peter on board I have every confidence we will achieve the same success at TLDH. I canât think of a better addition to our team â Peter is a superstar in our field, and we are delighted to have him at the helm.â
At the last ICANN meeting, the last that Dengate Thrush chaired, the application programme was approved by the board and there will be an application window for new gTLD applicants for three months from 12 January.
Dengate Thrush has been involved in ICANN since its inception over ten years ago including through providing comments on the formation of ICANN and serving on the launching group of the ccNSO, who subsequently elected him an ICANN board member in 2005 and then ICANN chair replacing Vint Cerf in 2007. His term on the board, and as ICANN chair, ended at the ICANN meeting in Singapore in late June.
Dengate Thrush was also instrumental in the establishment of the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain association and was legal advisor to InternetNZ.