Compensation Committee of the Board (BCC)

Tripti Sinha is the President and CEO of Internet2, where she champions the organization’s core mission of enabling U.S. higher education and research institutions to collaborate on mission-critical technology services and emerging technologies. Internet2 also works with global National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Sinha has over three decades of progressive experience in Internet and Cyber-Infrastructure technologies. Her experience spans leadership roles in engineering, operations, finance, governance, advocacy, and policy.

Before joining Internet2, Tripti held two leadership roles at the University of Maryland: Assistant Vice President and Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director of the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX), a regional research and education network. In these roles, she supported advanced, high-performance networking and research technologies, including GPU compute infrastructure optimized for AI workloads and investigating evolving quantum networking technologies.

She has served on many non-profit and private sector technology advisory boards, and was past Chair of The Quilt’s Board of Directors and former Co-Chair of ICANN’s Root Server System Advisory Committee.

Tripti has a Computer Science degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts and did graduate work in Computer Science at the University of Maryland. She holds executive education certificates from Harvard Kennedy School in Public Leadership and Policy, and in Global Innovation and Execution from Stanford University. She was born in India and lives in the United States. As a child and young adult, Tripti moved back-and-forth between the U.S. and India which gave her an appreciation for global pluralism. She is proficient in English and Hindi, and understands Punjabi, Urdu and the ancient Sanskrit language. Sinha has a keen interest in Information and Communication Technology innovation, entrepreneurship, governance and policy, and international affairs.

Tripti was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board of Directors by the Nominating Committee in 2018. Her term will expire at the Annual General Meeting 2027.

Dr. Catherine Adeya, a Senior Digital Transformation and Governance Specialist, is an experienced leader and advocate who has worked over 25 years in technology and development. She has rich experience across academia, civil society, government, and the private sector. Catherine was the Director of Research at the World Wide Web Foundation until November 2022. She was responsible for coordinating a global research team, dedicated to achieving a web that is safe and empowering for everyone. She oversaw the organization's groundbreaking research in areas of Internet access, privacy and data rights, and women's rights online, focused on low- and middle-income countries. Catherine has extensive knowledge of ICT for Development, and has numerous publishing and speaking credits on the topic. After her doctoral studies, Catherine began working as a Research Fellow at the United Nations University's Institute for New Technologies in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in 1998.

In 2002, driven by a commitment to tackling global inequality, Catherine moved back to Africa to advocate for the use of digital technologies to expand opportunities and drive development. She was involved in research linking ICT and poverty, critical success factors for the business process outsourcing industry, and collaborated with organizations like the International Development Research Centre. In 2005, she moved from academia to work with civil society on ICTs for Development. Catherine has also been involved in the Kenya ICT policy process since 2006 through the Kenya ICT Action Network, which was the beginning of ICT networks for participatory democracy and economic growth in Kenya.

Catherine was appointed to the first Board of Directors of the Kenya ICT Board (now the ICT Authority of Kenya) in 2007. She has also served as the Director of Business Process Outsourcing/Information Technology Enabled Services at Kenya's Ministry of ICT, in addition to serving as founder CEO of the Konza Technopolis Development Authority. She was also instrumental in the development of the East Africa Centre for Internet Governance and Policy at Strathmore University in Nairobi.

She is an independent Non-executive Director at Standard Chartered Bank Kenya and Old Mutual East Africa Holdings, where she is the Chair of the Technology and Innovation Committees (with a core focus on cybersecurity oversight). She also serves on the advisory board of the East Africa Infrastructure Platform.

Catherine received an undergraduate degree in Information Sciences from Moi University in Kenya. Her postgraduate studies culminated in a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Information and Development from Edinburgh, Scotland. She has certifications in corporate governance, Cybersecurity Audits Training, and Board Governance and Leadership Masterclass.

Catherine has executive education training in Women's Leadership from Yale University; Cybersecurity and Executive Strategy training from Stanford University; and has taken an Innovation-Driven Organizations Masterclass from the Institute of Directors in Kenya.

Catherine was selected in 2023 to serve on the ICANN Board of Directors by the Nominating Committee for a three-year term. Her term will expire at the Annual General Meeting 2026.

Byron Holland (MBA, ICD.D) has been the President and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) since 2008. An expert in Internet governance and a seasoned entrepreneur, he has C-level experience in private and not-for-profit sectors. Under Byron’s leadership, CIRA has evolved from a single-service registry to a globally recognized, multi-product, commercial not-for-profit. Now one of the leading country code top level domains (ccTLDs) in the world, CIRA manages over 3.4 million domains, with more than 30% of the world’s TLDs using its domain name system (DNS) services. Byron represents CIRA internationally in global policy work and has played a pivotal role in shaping key Internet governance decisions, holding prominent leadership positions within the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), including Chair of the Customer Standing Committee, and serving as both Chair and Vice Chair of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO). He also served on the nominations committee for the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) from 2019-2022. Byron currently sits on the Board of Directors as Vice Chair of TorIX, Canada’s largest internet exchange point and as Treasurer of the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries. The ccNSO selected Byron in March 2025 to serve on the ICANN Board. His term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2027.

As Vice President of Technology at Akamai Technologies, Christian Kaufmann leads the Technology department, which is responsible for driving the technical evolution of the Akamai Edge platform, including a wide set of responsibilities like hardware engineering, data center architecture, network architecture and engineering, and software and systems development.

Christian has extensive experience in corporate governance, including hiring Chief Executive Officers and handling mergers and acquisitions. He has served on various other boards over the last 15 years, including at Internet Exchanges and the Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC).

Before joining Akamai, Christian worked in various technical and managerial roles at several Internet service providers and carriers, including Telia Sonera, Easynet, and Cable & Wireless.

Christian has a Master of Science in Advanced Networking from The Open University in the U.K. He also holds various technical certifications, including Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) and Juniper Networks Certified Internet Expert (JCNIE) certifications.

He was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board of Directors by the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) in 2022. His term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2025.

Sajid Rahman is a multidisciplinary leader who has worked in the financial services, health care, renewable energy, and technology sectors. He served as Managing Director at Standard Chartered Bank at locations across Asia and Africa. Later, Sajid founded a social business in health care, serving over five million people. Currently, he is the Managing Partner of MyAsiaVC – a venture capital firm investing in the second-order impacts of macro trends. He is also the founder of industry-scale renewable energy projects.

Sajid is an experienced board member. He is the Chair of the Audit Committee of a public-sector bank and adviser to a number of startups. He is an architect of an accelerator program for rural entrepreneurs and subject-matter experts. He is a well-known business strategist and capable change agent with over 20 years of experience at the senior management level and 10 years of experience at the board level, managing transformation and growth agendas.

Sajid is a writer on technology trends and has been published regularly in tech journals. He is a notable speaker at global forums on health, technology, and financial services organized by Financial Times, Bloomberg, Mobile World Congress, Royal School of Medicine, Fortune Magazine, etc.

Sajid has a master's degree in Commerce and is a scholar of the Financial Times Non-Executive Director diploma program.

He was nominated to serve as an ICANN Board Director by the Nominating Committee in 2022. His term will expire at the Annual General Meeting in 2028.