Staley was unanimously elected during an ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) board teleconference on March 12, just over a week after ccTLD operators were invited to nominate candidates for the position.
The preliminary report of the board meeting notes that "Anthony Staley is very well qualified to serve as the ccTLD delegate to the Nominating Committee."
Staley's credentials are extensive. He was formerly a Minister for Post and Telecommunications--a role now subsumed within Communications, IT and the Arts. The current holder of that portfolio, Richard Alston, endorsed the redelegation of the .au ccTLD from Robert Elz to .au Domain Administration (auDA).
Staley is a director of auDA, a former Liberal party federal president and also sits on various other public and private boards. He is the chair of Internet and e-commerce security provider eSec, the council of the National Museum of Australia, and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Council. Various reports suggest the Federal government may appoint Staley to the ABC board.
The Nominating Committee is very influential and is slated to select the majority of the next ICANN board. It will also choose five members of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), and three members of the Generic Names Supporting organisation (GNSO) Council. ALAC's purpose is to improve links between 'ordinary' Internet users and ICANN, while GNSO is charged with developing policy for the generic TLDs such as .com and .net.
At least one member of the nominating committee must come from each of five geographical regions, including Asia-Pacific.
Australians Paul Twomey (formerly CEO of National Office for the Information Economy and chair of ICANN's government advisory committee) and Chris Disspain (CEO of auDA) have been tipped as frontrunners for the next ICANN presidency.
Although the Nominating Committee has no direct say in that appointment, Staley's election is unlikely to harm either man's chances of success.
