Andreas Musielak, member of the Executive Board of the registry managing the German TLD .de, DENIC eG, was appointed new Chair of the Strategic and Operational Planning Standing Committee (SOPC) of the Country Code Names Supporting Organisation (ccNSO), a body within the structure of ICANN. As of January 2022, he takes over the chairmanship from Giovanni Seppia, who moves on to ICANN. Andreas Musielak has represented the interests of the ccTLD community, the DENIC Cooperative and the Cooperative members already since 2016 in the SOPC as a committee member and thus can build on extensive experience in his future position.
About ccNSO and SOPC
The Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) represents the interests of the ccTLDs at ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the central coordination body for Internet infrastructure. The ccNSO is a platform that fosters communication and the exchange of knowledge and experience among country-code registries (ccTLDs) in order to develop global policies on ccTLDs. The ccNSO’s activities are mostly organised through working groups and committees, such as the Strategic and Operational Planning Standing Committee (SOPC). Heads and employees of all ccTLD registries can participate in them. The aim of the SOPC Committee is to coordinate and promote the participation of ccTLD managers in ICANN's strategic and operational planning processes. Andreas Musielak thanks Giovanni Seppia for his great work as SOPC Chair. "Giovanni has created an excellent basis for the future work of the Committee. In my term as SOP Chair, I want to ensure that the strategic and operational processes and the related budgetary processes continue to be transparently presented to the Internet community and that planning remains characterised by the right degree of foresight and detail. To achieve this, I want the strong involvement and the great expertise of the ccTLDs to be reflected at a high level in the SOPC."