ICANN Picks New Head For Communications Team

[news release] ICANN today announced that Duncan Burns has been named as the organisation’s Vice President of Global Communications.

Burns is leaving Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Washington, D.C. to lead ICANN’s rapidly expanding global communications team.

“Duncan has the international experience and leadership skills we need “ said Sally Costerton, ICANN’s Senior Advisor to the President for Global Stakeholder Engagement. “He understands both our unique bottom up model and community as well as having the experience to lead the rapid internationalization needed as our new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program translates to ramped-up demands for qualitative international communications. I can think of no one better suited to guide those efforts than Duncan.”

Costerton announced the hiring of Burns during ICANN’s on-going largest-ever public meeting in Beijing.

Burns has been with Hill+Knowlton Strategies since September 2000, working in both London and Washington D.C. on a range of national and international programs across the technology, energy, finance and NGO sectors. In 2011, Burns was appointed H+K’s first global energy practice director, responsible for driving the growth of the energy practice worldwide and delivering best practice across the company’s roster of clients and network of experts. Burns was also the interim general manager of H+K’s Washington DC and previously senior vice president in the technology practice.

“I am excited to be joining ICANN at such an important time in its history as it enables the Internet’s evolution into new languages, markets and beyond. I was part of a team that a couple of years ago worked with ICANN in its efforts to expand awareness of the organization’s new gTLD program,” said Burns. “I was impressed by the people I met and the way in which transparency and engagement are the core around which ICANN and its communications efforts are built.”

In the last few years Burns has led teams working with, among others, Qualcomm, eBay, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Statoil and Better Place.

Burns, who was born in the United Kingdom, will be based in ICANN’s Washington, D.C. office.  He assumes his new position on May 20.

Jim Trengrove, ICANN’s Senior Director of Communications who has been leading the communications department since September 2012, will shift his focus to the expansion of ICANN’s media platforms.