Re: [ga] ICANN secret "closed-door" meeting on compensation in Brussels??!!??

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George and all,

  Public discussion of compensation for any sort of corporation
is often times only discussed and decided in private.  In ICANN's
case as a non-profit CA. Corp. that has a significant public interest
and responsibility that they would or should be more open and
transparent when doing a compensation review or a meeting considering
same.  To not do so only promotes significant discontent and distrust
by those that ICANN supposedly is serving.

  My own opinion is that most if not all of ICANN staff, and certainly
their Sr. Leadership and legal representatives are grossly overpaid
given the lack or work product, and poor performance vis a vis the
stakeholders/ users / Registrants.  But their PR practices are well
done even if most of same is mostly BS.


-----Original Message-----
>From: George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Jul 29, 2010 7:29 PM
>To: GNSO GA Mailing List <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [ga] ICANN secret "closed-door" meeting on compensation in 
>Brussels??!!??
>
>
>Hi folks,
>
>According to:
>
>http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/prelim-report-23jun10-en.htm
>
>ICANN's Board had a secret closed-door meeting on the Wednesday in Brussels, 
>and 
>
>I don't recall ever seeing an advance notice to the community of the agenda.
>
>In it, according to the preliminary report, staff compensation was the main 
>topic. Staffers feel that making more than $200K/yr is just not enough, at a 
>non-profit during a deep recession:
>
>http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga-200709/msg04046.html
>
>And for Rod Beckstrom, the compensation is of course much higher:
>
>http://www.thedomains.com/2010/02/11/nonprofit-icann-releases-salaries-beckstrom-over-2-2-million-guaranteed-cfo-270k-lawyer-230k-plus-plus/
>
>
>It's funny because I directly asked about the 16+ people making more 
>than $200K/yr during the public Q&A and they couldn't name any 
>comparable  organizations, lol. See question #2 at:
>
>https://icann.wufoo.com/reports/icann-38-public-forum-fy-11-budget/
>
>and the full transcript is at:
>
>http://brussels38.icann.org/meetings/brussels2010/transcript-public-forum-24jun10-en.txt
>
>
>Searching for "Twomey" takes you to it, where they tried to dodge the 
>question, got jeered at by the crowd, and then attempted an answer after the 
>break which included:
>
>" I think the third question was have we looked at the proportion of 
>individuals compensated over $200,000 as it relates to other non-profit 
>corporations.  I don't know the answer of how our proportion compares to 
>others.
>
>The fourth question by the respondent was:  Are we aware of other 
>non-profit corporations that use for-profit benchmarks in doing their 
>compensation?  And while I can't give names right off the top of my head, with 
>the compensation consultant that ICANN uses, we've extensively looked at 
>appropriate benchmarks, 
>appropriate comparables. They have assured us that this is.
>
>The board actually has had a discussion with staff at this meeting 
>about rebenchmarking all our comparables.  And that's something that we're 
>going 
>to be looking at.  I would look forward to being able to answer that question, 
>which 
>is the proportion of relatively highly paid people in ICANN versus 
>other non-profits.  I think that's a great question to benchmark ourselves 
>against.   I don't have the answer to that today."
>
>Why didn't the ICANN Board discuss these issues during the public and open 
>meeting on the Friday? Isn't it funny how ICANN has "all the answers" in their 
>secret private meetings (where staff is allegedly vastly underpaid and needs 
>salary increases), yet when questioned in public, their response is "I don't 
>have the answer to that today."
>
>Sincerely,
>
>George Kirikos
>http://www.leap.com/
>

Regards,

Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 294k members/stakeholders and growing, 
strong!)
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