I am now stepping down as RIPE Chair and handing over the role to Mirjam
Kühne from tomorrow 1 September 2020.
Niall O’Reilly will at the same time take on the role as the Vice-chair.
It has been a pleasure working for the community as RIPE Chair since I took
over from Rob Blokzijl in 2014. But as you all know, I will not go far, but
continue to work for the RIPE NCC members and RIPE community in my new role
as Managing Director for the RIPE NCC.
Rather than waiting for the next RIPE meeting and doing the formal handover
there, we think it is better to do the handover now, so we have a clear
separation of the RIPE NCC MD and RIPE Chair roles when planning the
upcoming RIPE Meeting.
This has taken a bit longer than expected because we wanted to put in place
proper segregation between the RIPE NCC and RIPE Chair. As RIPE NCC
Managing Director, I have signed an agreement with Mirjam terminating her
current employment from the RIPE NCC effective from 1 September. At the
same time, the RIPE NCC executive board represented by the chair, Cristian
Kaufmann and Treasurer Ondrej Filip, with the assistance of RIPE NCC HR
Director and external legal advisor, has negotiated and signed a new
contract with Mirjam as RIPE Chair for the duration of her RIPE Chair
appointment. The contract is compliant with Dutch labour law but also
ensuring the independence of the RIPE Chair and referring to the community
processes as the only grounds for termination of the position.
I believe that this addresses the concern raised regarding the independence
of the RIPE Chair. In my time I was dependent on my employer Visma in
addition to the travel funding from the RIPE NCC. Rob Blokzijl before me,
was dependent on his employer NIKEF until his retirement and after that on
the RIPE NCC, both fr travel funding but also remuneration for work for the
RIPE NCC. The latter was not known to me until recently and I apologise for
making erroneous statements about this in the past.
I wish Mirjam Kühne and Niall O’Reilly all the best in their new roles and
will work closely with them to hand over the open actions. This will be
documented in a blog post on RIPE Labs.
Kind Regards,
Hans Petter Holen
RIPE Chair 2014-2020
On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 13:05, Hans Petter Holen <hph(a)oslo.net> wrote:
>
> I would like to congratulate Mirjam Kühne and Niall O’Reilly on their
> selection as our new RIPE Chair and Vice-Chair. Both Mirjam and Niall have
> a long history within RIPE; they are experienced chairs, they understand
> consensus, and they share the community's expectations in terms of
> transparency and openness. I am sure they will continue to serve the
> community well in their new roles.
>
> After Rob Blokzijl passed the torch to me in 2014, this is the first time
> we have selected our RIPE Chair (and now Vice-Chair) as a community. I want
> to thank everyone who participated in this process - by standing as
> nominees, volunteering to serve on the NomCom, providing feedback, or by
> helping to establish the process itself.
>
> I do want to acknowledge that concerns were raised quite late in the
> process about the potential for capture or influence by the RIPE NCC.
> However, I hope you will agree that the NomCom has chosen some good people
> here. It is worth remembering that we operate on “rough consensus”, which
> means that not everyone will fully agree with everything. That being the
> case, we have plenty of time to consider further improvements to the
> process before it starts again ahead of RIPE 91. There is also an
> opportunity to work on improving the process for selecting working group
> chairs and the community’s code of conduct, so I would like to encourage
> you to volunteer for these efforts under the guidance of our new leadership.
>
> So what happens next? I am eager to hand over my RIPE Chair
> responsibilities. Mirjam and Niall will need time to fit their new RIPE
> responsibilities alongside their existing ones. I don't expect this will
> take too long, and I intend to exit the role pass onhand overam committed
> to hand over the torch as soon as possible.
>
> I am happy that I no longer have to occupy both the RIPE Chair and RIPE
> NCC Managing Director roles. As the Managing Director, I am fully committed
> to giving the new leadership and the RIPE Community the support needed,
> just as my predecessors have supported me and my predecessor Rob Blokzijl.
>
> In the meantime, I hope you will join me in wishing our new RIPE Chair and
> Vice-Chair the very best... and with my RIPE NCC Managing Director's hat
> on, I would also like to thank the outgoing RIPE Chair for his contribution
> over the past six years.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Hans Petter Holen
>
> (Outgoing) RIPE Chair / RIPE NCC Managing Director
>
>
> On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 12:55, Daniel Karrenberg via ripe-list <
> ripe-list(a)ripe.net> wrote:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> The RIPE 2020 NomCom has selected Mirjam Kühne as RIPE Chair and Niall
>> O'Reilly as RIPE Vice Chair. After interviewing all nominees, hearing
>> substantial input from the community and a thorough discussion during
>> three selection meetings all voting members voted to select Mirjam as
>> Chair and eight out of ten voting members voted to select Niall as Vice
>> Chair. The selection was subsequently supported unanimously by all
>> members of the committee. We closely followed the process spelled out in
>> ripe-727 and ripe-728. We regularly paused to confirm that the whole
>> committee was comfortable with the process and its progress.
>>
>> We were able to choose from a set of nominees who are all very capable
>> and well respected in the community. We expect that the community would
>> support any of them as their Chair. Our selection is in no way a
>> negative statement about the nominees we did not select.
>>
>> We selected Mirjam because the input from the community clearly favoured
>> her. She is very widely regarded as someone who listens carefully to
>> everyone and who helps the community to find consensus and move forward.
>> We selected Niall because of the positive input we received about his
>> track record with the community. Mirjam and Niall convinced us that they
>> would work well as a team and complement each other.
>>
>> The RIPE NCC board has confirmed the candidates in accordance with the
>> process set out in ripe-727. The original time line called for a
>> transition from Hans Petter to Mirjam and Niall during RIPE 81 in
>> October. Hans Petter has since resigned as RIPE Chair because he
>> accepted to be the new managing director of the RIPE NCC; he is
>> currently also serving as RIPE Chair ad-interim. In this situation it
>> makes little sense to stick to the original time line. Therefore we
>> suggest that the outgoing and incoming Chairs arrange the transition
>> among themselves as soon as practicable.
>>
>> We plan to publish the NomCom report about this first run of the
>> selection process in September before our term ends at RIPE 81. We
>> expect to make suggestions for improving the process and look forward to
>> the community discussing and deciding the process for the next
>> iteration.
>>
>> We thank everyone who supported the NomCom, especially all nominees and
>> the many members of the community who made time to give us their input.
>>
>> Finally we call on the whole community to welcome and support Mirjam and
>> Niall in their new roles!
>>
>> Daniel Karrenberg - Chair - RIPE 2020 Nomcom
>>
>>
