SECTION B. Professional and Educational Background
1. Provide details of your current job, role, title, employer and affiliations
| 2011 – Present: Consultant Manager, ITEMS International (France) – IT & Internet governance Open Data – European projects – Citadel 2010 – Present: ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (USA) Board Director (seat N° 15) selected by the ALAC/At-Large Community December 2010 – October 2014, Board ICANN Committees: Finance (Member), Structural Improvements (Member) Public Participation then Public Stakeholder Engagement (Chair) – Nov 2013 2011 – Present: IFFOR – International Foundation for Online Responsibility (USA) Vice-Chair of the Board – May 2011 – December 2016 Develops policies for the dot-xxx Internet extension 2013 – Present: AFNIC – Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération Membre of the Board – Selected by Internet Users – June 2013 – June 2016 |
2. Describe your educational and professional history. Provide all information that you believe may be relevant to being an effective member of the ICANN Board
| 2004 – 2011: CEO, BBS International Consulting, Versailles, France I co-founded this company in June 2004. BBS is an IT consultancy with particular emphasis on Business processes, Information Systems, Internet Technologies and Governance. Customers of major completed projects include: • Nouvelles Images – E-commerce B2B and B2C projects • ICANN / AGIFEM – Local host of the ICANN meeting in Paris • Veolia – Evolution of the ticketing for public transportation • Air France Consulting – E-Ticketing • ESCEM – Professor Information System MBA – Athens – Greece • ICANN – Evaluation of the new gTLDs introduced in 2000 2000 – 2004: Deputy General Manager, CIGREF (Club Informatique des Grandes Entreprises Françaises), Paris, France (www.cigref.fr) Cigref (Club Informatique des Grandes Entreprises Françaises) was founded in 1970. Its purpose is to bring together the Chief Information Officers their teams from the top 100 of the French and European corporations. The membership covers all sectors of economy, with over 120,000 IT and telecoms professionals and more than 4 million individual end-users. Cigref represents the interests of its members before governance bodies on a national and international level. Cigref conducts and publishes research as a way to raise member’s awareness of strategic opportunities, best practices, tools available on the market and public policy concerns. Cigref’s Benchmark Studies are freely available on its website. As Deputy General Manager, I was able to combine my management experience in not-for-profit organizations with my information technology background. My appointment coincided with Cigref’s development of a new strategy. Serving as a lead member of the business re-engineering team, I helped defining a systemic approach to identify and meet members’ needs. During my tenure, I was in charge of: i) Leading a full-time team of 10 staff researchers and project managers; ii) Expanding activities organized for Cigref member companies; iii) Directing relations with key IT and Telecommunication providers iv) Tracking and acting upon Internet-related issues on behalf of the organization and its members, such as Internet Governance, standardization, technical coordination of shared resources and e-business platforms. v) Organizing an annual meeting of Euro-CIO, a group of about 100 CIOs from various European countries, as well as setting up a network for European CIOs. 2000 Vice President Internet Strategy Consulting & Chief Knowledge Officer FI SYSTEM (Web agency, 700 people in four European countries) Paris, France In a fast-growing market, I joined the Executive Board of this Web Agency to start a pan-European Consulting team for Internet Strategy. After six months twenty consultants were in charge of assignments for large accounts and start-ups. We also set up an Intranet with tools for the effective sharing of knowledge across the organization. In that context I headed assignments for blue-chip companies (such as Vivendi Universal). 1991 – 1999 SNCF, Paris, France SNCF, the French National Railways, is a company with over 180,000 employees and more than US$20 billion in annual revenue (www.sncf.com). Chief Technology Officer IT, (1997 – 1999). Main responsibilities included: i) Development of a common IT technology strategy for the SNCF Group including the deployment of key systems shared by the whole group ii) Determination of company standards for hardware, software and telecommunications, iii) The lead of several key projects such as e-inform@tion and Total Cost of Ownership. The e-inform@tion project formed the basis of an electronic commerce reservation system for purchasing train tickets online and began successful operations – on schedule – in July 1998. My role included setting common rules and policies, creating the technical infrastructure, developing a common user interface model and managing the project team. The Total Cost of Ownership project included a complete inventory of information technology assets reconciled with the surrounding organizational structure, determination of actual costs of ownership, analysis of new software needed to optimize inventory management and software distribution and the establishment of new supplier contracts for desktop and mobile users. Director, System and Distribution Strategy, Grandes Lignes Business (1994 – 1996) Responsible for all SNCF intercity and international passenger train distribution systems including the development of the passenger information system strategic plan, putting the “Grandes Lignes” on the Internet, multi-modal business (air/rail), overseeing the Socrate interface to global distribution systems (e.g., Sabre and Amadeus), serving as the SNCF representative at the Qik-Access international user group (a 4GL specialized in central reservations systems’ access, developed by Qantas and American Airlines) and marketing Socrate system manager. Socrate was sold to Eurostar (train service from London to Paris and Brussels), Thalys (train service from Paris to Brussels and Amsterdam) and international TGVs (train service from France to Switzerland). Project Manager: SNCF / SOCRATE distribution terminals (1991 – 1993) Managed a team of 150 people, with a budget of US$40 million, to develop new SNCF distribution terminals and support technical systems (including 4,500 point of sales terminals and 1,800 automated ticketing machines – launched in 1992 and in use until 2008), the functional definition of travel agencies’ terminals, the system interface to Minitel (Video Text terminal) and the use of "smart card" integrated circuit (I.C.) cards for tickets and money, eliminating paper tickets. 1985 - 1990 AIR INTER, Paris, France Air Inter was a French domestic airline, now merged within Air France. Marketing Distribution Manager (1988 - 1990) * Research and Development Leader for the Commercial Branch of a new internal reservation system, new distribution channels, Global Distribution Systems, new ticketing tools. * Air Inter Representative within international organizations, including IATA (International Air Transport Association), AEA (Association of European Airlines), CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation) Product Marketing Executive (1985 - 1988) * Development of new fares for children and students; * Expansion of new frequent flyer programs. EDUCATION 1984 Graduate of the E.S.S.E.C Management Business School – Cergy, France 1983 Graduate of the International Centre for Advanced Tourism Studies (World Tourism Organization – Mexico) 1982 Engineer – National Timber Engineers School – Paris, France LANGUAGES French: mother tongue English: fluent Spanish: operational Italian: fair |
3. Describe any current and past volunteer community positions, roles and accomplishments. We are particularly interested in similar Board directorship and committee experience
| 2010 – Present: ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (USA) Board Director (seat N° 15) selected by the ALAC/At-Large Community December 2010 – October 2014, Board ICANN Committees: Finance (Member), Structural Improvements (Member) Public Participation then Public Stakeholder Engagement (Chair) – Nov 2013 2011 – Present: IFFOR – International Foundation for Online Responsibility (USA) Vice-Chair of the Board – May 2011 – December 2016 Develops policies for the dot-xxx Internet extension 2013 – Present: AFNIC – Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération Membre of the Board – Selected by Internet Users – June 2013 – June 2016 1983 – 2006 Member of the Board, UCPA Paris, France www.ucpa.com The National Union of Outdoors Sports Centers (UCPA – Union Nationale des Centres Sportifs de Plein Air) is a union of organizations co-managed by youth associations, sport federations including the National Olympic Committee, and French Government (Ministries for Youth, Sports, Internal affairs…). I worked on a voluntary basis, with responsibility for the Activities Committee that oversees the organization of sport holidays. 2010 – today - Advisory Director of ISOC Chennai Chapter; www.isocmadras.com 2009 – today - Honorary chair of ISOC France; www.isoc.fr 2004 – 2009 - Board member of FING Paris, France; www.fing.org 2004 – 2009 - Chairman of the Board of ISOC France; www.isoc.fr 2002 – 2008 - Chairman of the EGENI organization committee; www.egeni.org |
4. List any relevant personal or professional web pages
| http://fr.linkedin.com/in/sebastienbachollet http://www.facebook.com/#!/sebastien.bachollet?v=info http://sebastien.bachollet.fr |
SECTION C. Internet Involvement and Interest in ICANN
1. Describe how you meet the criteria for the At-Large selected ICANN Board Director position
| In order to be effective as an advocate of current and future Internet users in general, the At-Large selected ICANN board member must be engaged in an ongoing effort to improve ICANN’s institutional understanding of users’ legitimate expectations towards Internet governance bodies. ICANN itself is growing in weight and inertia while, at the same time, it is changing its structure radically and from the ground up. Both the users’ evolving expectations and ICANN’s own changes need to be taken into account with a systemic view. With the increased number of gTLD registries, the weight of contracted parties is increasing radically and substantial efforts will be necessary to avoid the risk of ICANN becoming a club providers of internet, legal and lobbying services, or a battlefield between those different interests. Decisions made before 2011 with a lack of considerations for end-user interests have produced shocking effects as late as this year. For instance, many apparently insignificant rules in new gTLD program turned out to give unacceptable prerogatives to ICANN-insiders at the expense of end-users and communities. The situation would have been even worse if the Board had not initiated a change of ICANN’s CEO and its mode of organization from 2011 onwards. The lesson to learn from this is the need for board members with a good understanding how decisions affect users, of ICANN’s rules and structures, and Internet Governance as a whole. I believe that I have been able to acquire a good understanding of the ongoing changes on both users’ side and the ICANN side, and that my experience on the Board is an additional asset to be used in the interest of At Large stakeholders. |
2. Describe current and past involvement in, contributions to, and leadership roles in activities and organizations involved in the development and operation of the Internet, its naming and addressing infrastructure and/or its security and stability
| My current Internet governance-related activities include: - ICANN: Board member (seat N°15) Dec 2010 – Oct 2014 -- Board ICANN Committees: Finance (Member), Structural Improvements (Member) -- Public Participation then Public Stakeholder Engagement (Chair), Dec10 – Nov13 - IFFOR – International Foundation for Online Responsibility -- Vice-Chair of the Board – May 2011 – December 2016 - AFNIC – Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération -- Member of the Board – Selected by Internet Users – June 2013 – June 2016 - Internet Society Chapters -- Honorary Chairman of ISOC France; -- Advisory Director of ISOC India-Chennai; -- Member of the Board of ISOC Cameroun; -- Member of ISOC Italy, Peru, Australia, San Francisco Bay Area, Disability and Special Needs. My Internet experience goes back to 1994 when I was in charge of adding a web site to SNCF's existing Minitel videotext system. The site allowed reservations and deferred payments of train tickets. Today www.sncf.com is one of the top e-business web site in France. We also developed a comprehensive programme to allow employees to be connected and to use Internet technologies (TCP/IP, Domain names). During the 2000–2003 period, I have represented CIGREF (Club Informatique des Grandes Entreprises Françaises) and business users in the Internet Governance field at all levels: France, Europe and world-wide (particularly within ICANN). CIGREF became a member of the DNSO Business Constituency at the outset. I represented CIGREF and its members and more generally acted as business users advocate. In France I represented CIGREF at AFNIC. I was an active member of the New TLDs Evaluation Process Planning Task Force (2001 – 2002 / http://www.icann.org/en/committees/ntepptf/) and of the Assistance Group of the Evaluation and Reform Committee for the formation of the ccNSO (2002 – 2003 http://www.icann.org/en/committees/evol-reform/ccnsoag-report-26feb03.htm). Together with Olivier Iteanu, I launched "European Global Event on domain Names and address systems on Internet" conference, know now as EGENI Europe held in Paris in June or July 2002 to 2008. It was an ISOC France event organized with the help of CIGREF (Club Informatique des Grandes Entreprises Françaises), Medef (Mouvement des Entreprises de France), and CCIP (Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Paris). EGENI brought together stakeholders of the Internet community, allowing a productive exchange of knowledge and opinions on many critical subjects. It was organized with French-English simultaneous interpretation and enabled over 250 conference participants to interact with key decision-makers from various European countries. In 2006 I helped organize EGENI Africa in collaboration with ISOC Morocco. I was Chairman of the Board of ISOC France from 2004 to 2009. ISOC France was a founding ALS member of ICANN - EURALO. I was elected in 2007 to the At-Large Advisory Committee to represent the European end-users. I was in charge of the Local Host organization for the ICANN meeting in Paris in June 2008 (http://par.icann.org/fr), which was attended by 1700 participants. I proposed and helped organize the first ALS Summit at the Mexico ICANN meeting in March 2009. |
3. Provide a statement about what you would contribute in the At-Large selected ICANN Board Director position to ICANN and its mission
| Note: A number of points I have raised in this context three years ago (in September 2010) remain of equal importance now. They appear here with additions and re-formulations based on the experience I have made in the meantime. Preparing ICANN for growth is a matter of urgency. This task is not limited to adapting ICANN’s governance and its accountability and transparency processes. ICANN must recognize and work with existing community-based structures. It must create interfaces between ICANN and community-based, local or purpose-specific organizations. The central Internet resources belonging to ICANN’s original mandate (Internet Addresses, the DNS and the Protocols) are being adapted to the Internet’s new order of magnitude. They must serve a much wider and much more diverse user community. ICANN must prepare itself. There will be new users along with new needs related to mobile computing, cloud-based services, the internet of things and large-scale online collaboration. There will be new applications. All of these will need human-friendly identifiers at an unprecedented scale, which in turn must have solid governance structures to protect resource portability, privacy and competition. ICANN’s New Frontier is the next billions of users. I commit to work with At-Large organization towards proactive rather than merely reactive ICANN policies in those areas. For many years, a lot of people with different opinions and backgrounds (cultural, linguistic, professional) have been working hard to set up ICANN's structures to involve Internet end-users in ICANN's decision-making and policy development processes. The multi-layered organizational structure - Internet End-users / At-Large Structures / Regional At-Large Organizations / At-Large Advisory Committee - is working better and better, even though it still needs further improvement. Since my first participation in ICANN activities, I have been committed ICANN's core values which I summarize with the keywords "stability, diversity and accountability". I will continue to be guided by these principles. I am also a keen advocate of Internet user’s interests. Having devoted many years of volunteer work to outreach and the development of an organizational structure for the user community (including the creation of Euralo and of the first fully elected ALAC). The ICANN board continues to be in great need of this perspective. It has become part of the deliberations of the ICANN board but more needs to be done. The representation of the end users still needs improvement. I hope to be able to help improve and develop ICANN in the following areas of high priority: ICANN organization As Board member and as members of various Board committees, I was able to support the following ALAC / At-Large initiatives: - ICANN Academy, - Online training platform, - ATLAS II, - RALO GA, - ALAC Advice tracking. That being said, the needs identified three years ago continue to require further action: - A better and more balanced representation of the various stakeholders (individual end-users / business users / governments / registries / registrars / other service providers / academic and similar organizations / technical organizations). - ICANN must listen more to end-users. ICANN must support and fund the organizational efforts to allow the voices from the periphery to reach ICANN and the ICANN Board. The relationship between the ICANN Board and the ALAC must have formalized interactions, as is already the case between the GAC and the ICANN board. For instance, advice from ALAC must formally be taken into consideration by the Board. Moreover, there is a need for a formal working relationship between the GAC and ALAC. This can best be achieved through official liaisons from ALAC to the GAC and vice versa. These liaisons should be mandated in the Bylaws. - The At-Large community must continue to be equipped to organize outreach activities to achieve the participation of local organizations in as many countries as possible. Moreover, it must devote resources to "inreach" activities, that is, to maintain the interest of those who are already involved. ICANN must make funds available for regular face-to-face RALO general assembly meetings. Although it was conducted as an experiment, the first At-Large Structures Summit has proven its value and should become a regular gathering of the community. New TLDs I wrote the following before the start of the new gtLD program: I fully support the last ALAC statement on new gTLDs and I would like to emphasize one sentence I am particularly committed to: "From the At-Large perspective, the core issues remain maximizing the benefits and minimizing the confusion from the introduction of new gTLDs to the average Internet user...". New gTLDs must not be just considered as a "market". They must not be just a way to invest money. New gTLDs must be for new users and new usages. Their goal must therefore be to serve new communities. The policy development for new gTLDs was largely controlled by incumbents. Together with the current, yet to be completed implementation phase, it has taken already more than 6 years. Rather than treating the new TLDs as an entitlement for any investor, priority must be given to projects in the public interest that contribute to the improvement and the development of the Internet. Experience with the new gTLD program shows that these objective are more important than ever. It is interesting to see that some requests that were denied at first are now being implemented as part of the program. One such example is the principle of recognized categorization or types of TLDs, such as geographic or brand TLDs. The support of the community TLDs as well as the preparation of the next round are important issues for At-Large. It has not been easy to be included in New gTLDs discussions, as the Board has deprived itself of a large portion of members with experience policy work for gTLDs. I will discuss that in more detail in Section D. Conflict of Interest and References. IPv4/6 Address Space ICANN was well as the RIR, ISOC and other organizations are still struggling with IPv6 deployment. It is a very important that government and providers decide to use IPv6. End users need to have a seamless transition without the distortions of the competitive environment that can be caused by a lack of attention to IPv4 exhaustion. The role of the end-users in direction of both their providers and their government are very important and useful. Other tasks at hand While there has been improvement in the areas of language support and stakeholder engagement over the last three years, more needs to be done. The reorganization of the Language services department has enabled ICANN to support more languages and more constituencies. Stakeholder engagement has become a principle for the new ICANN leadership and helps address challenges at their root. An important decision was taken by the Board to pursue the recommendations of the Whois Review Team and to open a new track on directory services starting by the creation of an Expert Working Group. I have worked a lot on a strategy for the future ICANN meetings as chair of a multistakeholder international working group. It task is to deliver a report prior to the London meeting in June 2014 as a basis for action by the Board. |
4. Provide a statement about what you would contribute in the At-Large selected ICANN Board Director position to the At-Large Community
| While we have succeeded in setting up a mechanism or regular exchanges between ALAC as a group, its Chair - Olivier Crepin-Leblond - and the other members, RALO leaders, ALS representatives worldwide and myself, we should work on strengthening the role of input from users representatives. Over the last three years we were able to advance on At-Large ideas and projects and demonstrate the importance of user representation. We must continue to enhance the bandwidth and the resources for this task. The principle of a second At-Large selected Board member must continue to be pursued. |
5. Please describe specifically how and why you will be able to advance, at the ICANN Board, the interests of the At-Large Community and the broader global community of Internet end-users
| In June 2011, when running for a leadership position within the Board, I answer the following question: Experience in helping a Board to develop a long term vision for ICANN “Before describing my experience in this respect, I feel it is necessary to remind ourselves that the ICANN Board is very different from the Board of a business selling products to customers. This means that it cannot develop its vision as if it was a technology company. It is important for any Board to have a long-term vision. In ICANN's case, it must be developed in close consultation with the large and diverse ICANN Community. The help of Staff is needed in this respect, but does not dispense Board members from their own efforts to reach out. The Community does the real work, in ICANN. The Board and Staff merely have to assist the Community. It would be wrong to see the Board as the top layer of a hierarchy, with the staff in the middle and the Community at the bottom. In developing a vision, the ICANN Board must be true to the multi-stakeholder, bottom-up process. Currently, ICANN has a 3-year Strategic Plan and a 1-year Operating Plan and Budget. Compared to these short and medium term plans, the Vision must be for 10 years and beyond. ICANN's Mission and Core Values, as in the bylaws, come closest to a long-term vision for ICANN. They were written almost 10 years ago. In the meantime, many things have changes in and around ICANN. Many even more radical changes are imminent. It is indeed time for the Board to reassess and document its vision for ICANN. This goes beyond its mission and values, as it involves: - the policy environment, - the technical evolution, - ICANN's organizational structure (ACs and SOs), - the relationship between the various stakeholder groups, - the relationship between ICANN and other organizations (ISOC, W3C, ITU, IGF, UN family organizations), - ICANN's relationship with parties who do not participate in the ICANN process, such as governments outside of the GAC, corporate and individual end-users not represented through At-Large or other ICANN bodies, - ICANN's communications, in particular towards those who do not follow it on a regular basis.” I believe that a consensus was achieved to a large degree within the Board along those lines and that now ICANN is engaged in making it a reality. The input received from At-Large, the Board’s choice of the current CEO have improved ICANN’s preparation for the current global situation. The result will depend on all of us. |
6. Is there any additional information you would like to submit that would be helpful to the BCEC in making its decision? If so, please summarize it here
As I said 3 years ago: “I consider the current process of electing a voting Board member by the At-Large Community as first step in rebalancing the ICANN Board. The present solution is a useful compromise, but in the long run we need to work in the direction of the original proposal of the Board Review Team. For this reason, I will continue to advocate the presence of either two voting At-Large-elected Board members or one voting At-Large-elected Board member and one non-voting At-Large liaison.”
I hope to see, as one (amongst many) of the result of the ATLAS II, the decision from ICANN to have a second seat to be fulfill by ALAC/At-Large.
Finally, I would like to thank all the members of BMSPC, BCEC, ALAC and RALO leaders for their efforts in moving this process forward.
