According to an InternetNZ announcement, Barbara will join the Domain Name Commission with extensive leadership, governance and oversight experience across multiple industries, mainly regulated entities and financial services.

For the previous six years Barbara has held a number of roles at the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), most recently as Head of Monitoring and Oversight. The FMA regulates New Zealand’s financial markets. She graduated from the Victoria University of Wellington with a Bachelor of Laws in 2002 according to her LinkedIn profile.

Barbara replaces the acting Commissioner Isobel Egerton, who has been acting in the role since Brent Carey stepped down from the role in April 2022 to take up the position of CEO of New Zealand’s online child safety organisation Netsafe. Barbara’s first day at the Domain Name Commission was 1 May.

The Domain Name Commission was appointed by InternetNZ to develop and monitor a competitive registrar market for New Zealand’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD), as well as create a fair environment for the registration and management of .nz domain names.