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Baher Esmat Appointed Managing Director for
the Middle East and Africa (MEA) Regional Office
18
August 2020
ISTANBUL – 17 AUGUST 2020 – The Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced that Baher Esmat has
been appointed Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa (MEA)
office in Istanbul, Turkey. He is replacing Nick Tomasso who has served
as Managing Director for MEA since 2017 in addition to his role as Vice
President, Global Meeting Operations, in which he will continue to serve.
Esmat is taking on this responsibility in addition to his role as Vice
President, Stakeholder Engagement, Middle East, which he has held since
2012. Esmat will continue to report to Sally Costerton, Senior Advisor to
President & Senior Vice President, Global Stakeholder Engagement.
Esmat joined ICANN in 2006 as Regional Manager, Global
Partnerships, Middle East. During his 14-year tenure at ICANN org, he has
led the organization's engagement efforts in the Middle East and overseen
the development of regional engagement plans.
In his new role, Esmat will be responsible for the
day-to-day management of the regional office in Istanbul. He will work
with its functional teams to facilitate engagement and outreach
activities in the region and ensure that the office serves the MEA region
needs in alignment with ICANN's 2021-2025 strategic plan.
Prior to joining ICANN, Esmat worked in public and private
organizations, and led efforts to advance telecommunication
infrastructure and Internet services in Egypt and the Middle East. He
began his career as a network engineer and contributed to the
introduction of the Internet in Egypt in the 1990s. He also worked for
Newbridge Networks and was part of its regional pre-sales team developing
technical solutions for telecom operators and ISPs across the Middle
East. He later joined the Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology of Egypt and led the planning of key national infrastructure
projects and Internet Governance related work. He holds a Bachelor's
degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Cairo University,
and a Master's degree in Computer Science from the American University in
Cairo.
About
ICANN
ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and
unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you
need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or
other device. That address must be unique, so computers know where to
find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique
identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a
not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with a community of
participants from all over the world.
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