ICANN appoints new CEO

The organization charged with overseeing critical functions of the Internet on Tuesday named M. Stuart Lynn as its next president and chief executive.

Lynn will take over as president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) after the organization's March meeting in Melbourne, Australia, replacing Mike Roberts, who has served as president since October 1998.

Until his retirement in 1999, Lynn served as the chief information officer for the University of California system. He also has worked in IT roles at Cornell, UC Berkeley, Rice University and IBM and was an active member for the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Federation of Information Processing Societies.

The executive search committee said it chose Lynn from a pool of more than 300 people. ICANN's choice of someone with an extensive academic background comes as the organization has been under fire for kowtowing to corporate interests when it comes to actions such as resolving domain name disputes.

"Dr. Lynn will bring the energy, experience and skills needed to forge consensus from the diversity of Internet constituencies that have interest in ICANN and its work," Vint Cert, chairman of the ICANN board and the executive search committee, said in a statement.

ICANN's current and incoming president are meeting with reporters Wednesday to discuss the organization's future under Lynn.