Thanks Ben, Mick, I'm Tom Strickx, and I've not been as active in the RIPE community as Mick (13 years, that's a long time!), but I've around since RIPE77, which was also my first talk to the wider community. By day, I'm a senior principal network engineer at Cloudflare, and I'm also the vice chair of the INEX board. I strongly believe in public participation, and I'm convinced the routing working group is one of the best places to do just that. I would like to think I could provide a different perspective to Seb and Ben as the other co-chairs, and have a great set of people to continue the work. I believe MIck would be an excellent co-chair as well. The WG would be truly fortunate to have him join the co-chair group. I'm excited to see everyone next week! -- Tom Strickx Principal Network Engineer AS13335 - Cloudflare On Thu, Oct 15, 2026 at 4:30 AM Mick O'Donovan via routing-wg < routing-wg@ripe.net> wrote:
Thank you Ben for confirming.
My name is Mick O’Donovan and yes, the same Mick O’Donovan mentioned below. For those of you that don’t know me, I am currently working as a Network Engineer with Asiera, the National Research and Education Network provider for Ireland. I have been coming to RIPE meetings since RIPE66 in Dublin and have been involved network engineering since around 2003.
Largely over the time I have attend RIPE meetings, I have been a quiet consumer of the excellent content and a little too shy to even come to the mic to ask a question let alone put myself forward to be a co-chair of a working group. Nowadays though, I feel more inclined and confident to give back and help facilitate the on-going efforts to continue the great work that goes on in the networking community at large. I have done this by volunteering as a PC member of the Irish Network Operator Group (iNOG) since 2016 along with being part of the SIG-NOC (Special Interest Group for Network Operations Centres) Steering Committee since 2023 in the GÉANT community. In each of these roles, I play a very similar part to that of a perspective co-chair and feel I have both the experience and motivation to do a good job for this community.
As someone working still within network engineering in 2026, I have always attended and participated at, and in, the Routing Working Group since 2013 and it is central to my attendance at the in-person meetings. I feel I have something to offer this working group as a co-chair and equally see myself working well with the existing co-chairs into the future - seamlessly. It would be an honour to be a co-chair of the group if I’m honest!
Similarly though, I think in Tom, someone I would consider a good friend at this point, you also have an extremely good choice in a co-chair. Therefore I feel that whoever this working group selects as a new co-chair, it will be in very good hands and will continue to be the best working group at RIPE!
I very much look forward to seeing those of you that will be in attendance in Sofia and I appreciate any support you give me (us).
Regards,
Mick
On 15 Oct 2026, at 11:27, Ben Cartwright-Cox via routing-wg < routing-wg@ripe.net> wrote:
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Hello everybody!
As you may know, in Sofia at RIPE 93 we will running an election for one of the chairs on the routing-wg.
The current candidates are:
* Tom Strixx
* Mick O'Donovan
Assuming that no other candidate step forward these are the options to pick from! If you're still looking to run, please email routing-wg-chairs@ripe.net
If the candidates wish, they are more than welcome to introduce themselves on the mailing list here, we will be running a similar setup as last time in RIPE 89 ( you can find a video of such here https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/video/1528/ )
Cheers Ben Cartwright-Cox ----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/routing-wg.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/
----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/routing-wg.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/