Dear SSR2 Review Team members, We are pleased to see the review team reconvene and welcome the new members. It’s good to see the discussions about resuming the work, and we look forward to supporting and working with you as you restart the SSR2 review. In line with the SSR2-related Supporting Organizations/Advisory Committees (SO/AC) discussions, and communications from the SO/AC chairs, we wanted to share with you the efforts undertaken to support the review team. In response to the SO/AC chairs’ 15 February letter and 13 March request to the Organizational Effectiveness Committee of the ICANN Board (OEC), we are pleased to inform you that the ICANN organization (ICANN org) has engaged an external professional to facilitate the transition process and help the review team in restarting and moving forward with its work. After reviewing facilitator profiles and guidance from SO/AC chairs, ICANN org has identified Phil Khoury, Cameron. Ralph. Khoury Consulting Services, to assist the review team in relaunching its activities. Phil Khoury’s 15 years of experience facilitating discussions, his solid understanding of the ICANN multistakeholder model, and consensus building expertise, distinguished him as an appropriate resource to address the scope and focus areas SO/AC chairs established in their 13 March note i.e.: a) onboarding new members who have joined since the "pause" and agreeing on leadership from within the current membership; b) helping the group to work through concerns around membership and scope as identified in a confidential survey conducted by the SO/AC Chairs shortly after the pause; and c) helping the RT to identify ways to reach consensus. Per the SO/AC communication of 13 March, the appointment of the facilitator and the updated SSR2 membership formally mark the restart of the SSR2. As a first step, Phil Khoury will reach out to each of you to get your input in preparation for the next steps and proposed Review team’s upcoming three-day face-to-face meeting ICANN is coordinating with you, either at its office in Belgium or another identified location. As you know, the SO/AC chairs noted in their communication of 13 March some key items in relation to both the work of the facilitator and expected deliverables of the work. As announced in their letter, SO/AC chairs plan to share the information gathered from their survey (conducted after ICANN60) with the facilitator to inform his work. If you have any questions regarding the SO/AC communications, we encourage you to reach out to the SO/AC leadership. Based on the most recent doodle poll, it appears that 11 out of 17 members (16 SO/AC appointees + Board representative) are available on 22-24 August, and considering further discussions on the list, we are looking forward to input from the review team on scheduling. Since ICANN organization typically needs approximately 90 days to organize a face-to-face meeting, we would appreciate review team's indication within the next week – as to whether you would like to proceed with the 22-24 August option. We are mindful of everyone’s busy schedules and fully appreciate how difficult it is to find a common timeframe that fits everyone’s availability. As always, we thank you for your dedication to the success of this review. The hard work and time you put into this important effort are much appreciated. We look forward to working with you again. Kind regards, -- Negar Farzinnia Director, MSSI Technical Reviews & Review Implementation MSSI | Multistakeholder Strategy and Strategic Initiatives negar.farzinnia@icann.org | (310) 578-8977 ICANN | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90094