Hi all, I have been working with the vice-chairs, Adiel, and ICANN on a number of aspects related to the selection of the independent secretariat. I wanted to make a request to the group and also provide an update. == Request for an additional reviewer == As a result of discussions with the ICANN procurement staff, we believe that having a total of 5 reviewers to review and score all of the secretariat applicants would be ideal. It helps to have an odd number of reviewers in the evaluations come out somewhat split. We have at present four reviewers who have committed or have already provided reviews and scores for all applicants (Adiel and Russ have completed their evaluations; Jean-Jacques has now evaluated and provided scores for all applicants; and Mohamed is currently doing evaluations of all applicants). We’d like to get one more reviewer to complete this task. Please respond to this message if you are willing to be a reviewer. A later stage of the procurement process will involve group interviews with the finalists. Reviewers should be willing to participate in group interviews as well. All 5 will not need to be present if scheduling does not allow, but please do not sign up to review if you are not willing to also interview. Adiel is working with the ICANN procurement staff on a timeline for the remainder of the process and he will share that with the group when it is ready. == Discussion fora == As you know, to select an independent secretariat we are following ICANN’s procurement rules as the secretariat will be contracted with ICANN. One of those rules is that the identities of candidates and other information about them and their bids must remain confidential throughout the entire procurement process. This rule is necessary to prevent bidders from gaining advantages over one another or over ICANN as the contracting party by obtaining information about their competitors. It helps ensure the credibility of the procurement process and is a fairly standard rule of purchasing ethics. We had a bit of a slip here when some candidate information was posted to this mailing list (and then quoted in response emails), as this mailing list has a public archive. Those emails have been removed from the public archive. The list of emails that has been removed is attached. We are in the process of establishing a private mailing list with no public archive specifically for the purpose of having confidential secretariat selection discussions among the full ICG. You will be automatically subscribed to this list once it is created. When we need to discuss confidential secretariat selection information face-to-face or on a conference call, those meetings will also be private. Transcripts will not be provided. Non-confidential minutes of decisions taken can be provided afterward. It is extremely important that all information shared on this private mailing list or in private ICG discussions remain confidential amongst the 30 members and 2 liaisons of the ICG. You should treat the information shared on this list and in private ICG discussions the same way you would treat your own confidential information. We are not going to go through the process of having everyone sign an NDA, but you should treat your confidentiality obligation as if you had signed one. Leaking information about secretariat candidates outside of this group while the procurement process is ongoing will jeopardize our ability to credibly select a vendor for this purpose. If you feel you cannot maintain confidentiality, you should unsubscribe from the private list and recuse yourself from private ICG discussions. Once the contract with the vendor is signed, we should be able to make public some information about that decision, and at that time it will be clearly communicated to you (and publicly) which information that is. And of course the procurement process and documents are already public. It is also extremely important that you only share information on the private mailing list and in private discussions that needs to be discussed in private. These private fora are not meant to be replacements for this list or the rest of our meetings. We should all be vigilant to limit our confidential discussions to the purpose for which we establish them, and continue to carry on in full transparency on all other matters. We will be having a private discussion of secretariat matters as the first slot on our F2F agenda, October 17, 9:00-9:45. Alice will be sending conference bridge details to remote participants. I have also invited Xavier Calvez, CFO of ICANN, to join us for that session so that he can answer questions that you may have. Thanks, Alissa