Hello BC members, As the firm I represent is now officially a BC member, and as I am its voting representative, I wanted to thank this group for welcoming me and introduce my firm and myself. STEPHANE VAN GELDER CONSULTING (SVGC) was set up to leverage my experience as a professional journalist, a seasoned member of the domain industry and an entrepreneur. SVGC is a UK-based company operating in both England and France. It has clients in the UK, France, the US, Asia and the Arab countries. It provides consultancy in a number of areas, including: setting up companies in France, managing Internet-based projects, developing clients' online presence and strategy (including domain name related strategies and social media related strategies), lobbying, working and interacting with governments and governmental authorities, interfacing with registries and registrars, drafting targeted media content, understanding Internet governance, conducting business reviews. I am the company's founder and chairman. I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science. I studied at university in England. I am fully bilingual and bicultural in English and French. My first career was in journalism, where I worked as a print and TV journalist for more than 10 years. I then cofounded a corporate registrar in France called INDOM, which I built up to become France's market leader and then sold to UK-based Group NBT (now NetNames) in 2010. I stayed with NetNames until December 2012. I left NetNames to set up SVGC. I have good experience of the world of Internet governance. I served as an elected Board member for the French registry AFNIC from 2004 to 2010. I was nominated by European registry EURid to serve on its Requirements Panel and its Code of Conduct Council. INDOM has been a member of the Registrar Stakeholder Group since 2007 and I have been a member of that group's Executive Committee since 2008, when I was elected treasurer. In 2009 I was elected GNSO Council rep and nominated to be the CPH's Vice Chair in 2010. I was elected Chair of the GNSO Council in 2011 and again in 2012. I currently sit on the NomCom as the RrSG's rep there. I have already informed the RrSG Excom that I am now a BC member and that once my current NomCom term ends in Q3 this year, I will no longer seek to represent the RrSG in any position. I am delighted to be a member of the BC and look forward to meeting as many of you as possible in the months to come, either in person or via this list. I will be attending the INTA meeting in Dallas next week, so if any BC members are around, it would be a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for reading and sorry for this long first email to the BC list ;) Best, Stéphane Van Gelder Chairman and Managing Director/Fondateur STEPHANE VAN GELDER CONSULTING T (UK): +44 (0)7583 457053 T (FR): +33 (0)6 20 40 55 89 Skype: SVANGELDER www.StephaneVanGelder.com ---------------- Follow us on Twitter: @stephvg and "like" us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/DomainConsultant LinkedIn: fr.linkedin.com/in/domainconsultant/