Nominet CEO, Lesley Cowley Wins Leadership Award for Contributions to Domain Community

Nominet,the company best known for running the .UK internet infrastructure, announced today that Lesley Cowley has been awarded the inaugural ICANN Leadership Awards for her contributions to the domain industry.

You can read the press release after the jump:

“Lesley Cowley, CEO of Nominet – the internet company best known for running the .uk internet infrastructure – has been awarded the inaugural ICANN Leadership Award for her contributions to the domain name industry.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is responsible for the coordination of global Internet systems, presented the award at its latest meeting, held in Buenos Aires to mark its 15th anniversary. Ms Cowley was praised for her leadership of Nominet and her extraordinary energy, knowledge and leadership in the domain name community.

“Lesley’s commitment to the multi-stakeholder model of ICANN has no doubt contributed to its success. She has been instrumental in improving the relationship between ICANN and the various Supporting Organisations and Advisory Committees, as well as building tremendous trust with the ccTLD community and helping to create the DNS Women Group,” explained Fadi Chehade, the President and CEO of ICANN.

Accepting the award, Ms Cowley said: “It’s a great honour to receive the very first ICANN award for leadership. I’ve had the opportunity to lead some incredibly professional and dedicated teams, both at Nominet and at ICANN, who are hugely committed to the multi-stakeholder model and to serving the many stakeholders in order to make a positive difference to the Internet. I’d therefore like to dedicate this award to them.”

The new annual award, which acknowledges an individual’s leadership in protecting ICANN’s multi-stakeholder model, is decided unanimously by the ICANN leadership team.

For more information from the ICANN meeting, visit buenosaires48.icann.org.”