On Thursday the Internet Society named Kathryn C. Brown, a Washington D.C. telecommunications and Internet policy veteran, as its new CEO to be headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Most recently, Brown was a Washington, D.C. political fixture as Verizon’s Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility, working in the international Internet public policy arena and on corporate responsibility initiatives, including a 2010 partnership with the Internet Society to hold a forum in East Africa on Internet and higher education issues. Brown replaces Lynn St. Amour, a 15-year veteran of the Internet Society.
the founder of the Internet Society and a 15-year veteran of the organization.
In an interview with Techwire Brown emphasized the "bottom up" view of the Internet that the Internet Society represents, with local and regional chapters around the world made up of Internet users. Further, she emphasized the Internet Society does important work on governance, and technical aspects of administrating the Internet. She felt a key role of the Internet Society was to promote collaboration and open dialogue on Internet policy and technology.
Hot button issues that are foremost on her mind include: (1) Internet governance issues, particularly due to the recent revelations by Edward Snowden on government surveillance; (2) unsettled telecommunications policy issues that impact the Internet from the last 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WICT-12) meeting, with the next major meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary scheduled for October 2014; (3) security and encryption issues; and (4) open source technical standards work including trust and identity issues and global addressing as to the evolving Internet of Things.
