Since 2014, the ROW series has offered a platform for industry stakeholders to present and discuss technical topics related to real world experiences of implementing registration operations.
The Program Committee is responsible for planning, organizing, and providing a strategic oversight of each workshop to ensure its objectives are successfully met.
Current Committee Members
Andee Hill | ICANN
Andee Hill is a seasoned professional in the domain name industry, with a career spanning over two decades. She currently serves as the Senior Director, GDD Accounts at ICANN, a role she acquired in 2019 after joining in August 2017 as Registrar Services & Engagement Programs Director. In her current capacity, Andee leads an international team that manages all gTLD (generic Top-Level Domain) registry operators and ICANN-accredited registrars, ensuring smooth operations and strategic oversight of the domain name system.
Andee's journey in the domain name industry began in 1999 when she became one of the first employees at Escrow.com, a premier domain name escrow company that was founded that same year. She played an integral role in Escrow.com’s growth, holding multiple positions and contributing to its development into a leading platform for secure online transactions.
After years of success at Escrow.com, Andee transitioned to a new entrepreneurial venture in 2013. She founded Escrowhill.com, an online escrow company, which she developed and later sold, marking a significant milestone in her career.
In addition to her entrepreneurial ventures, Andee brought her expertise to Donuts, the largest new gTLD registry, now known as Identity Digital, where she served as Business Development Director. Her experience at Donuts further solidified her reputation as a key figure in the domain name industry.
Andee holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education from National University, and her background in education complements her ability to manage teams and develop strategic initiatives within the fast-paced domain name sector. With her extensive experience and leadership in both the private and public sectors of the domain name industry, Andee continues to be a driving force in shaping the future of the digital landscape.
Tongfeng Zhang | CIRA
Tongfeng Zhang is Director of Engineering, Registry Services at the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA). She leads the engineering teams responsible for the development and operation of CIRA’s Hello Registry platform, a modern registry solution providing core TLD services including EPP, RDAP, WHOIS, Data escrow, etc.
With deep expertise in registry infrastructure and domain name systems, Tongfeng focuses on building scalable, secure, and standards-compliant services that support registry operators and the broader internet ecosystem. Her work contributes to advancing reliable domain registry operations and improving the resilience of critical internet infrastructure.
Tongfeng holds a Master of Engineering in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
Lenn Orentas | Verisign
Leonard (Lenn) Orentas is a Sr. Director for Verisign’s Naming and Directory Services, where he oversees technical and policy implementations for Verisign's top-level domains. Beginning his career at NSI in 1997, Lenn was part of the foundational group that managed and implemented NSI’s domain name dispute policy, which later evolved into the UDRP. In 2000, he transitioned to the Registry team, focusing on key business metrics and new product initiatives and is a co-author of several DNS traffic and domain analysis patents. Since 2016, Lenn has focused on supporting the TLD platforms ensuring contractual compliance and service level performance.
James Gould | Verisign
James Gould is a fellow in Verisign’s technology services group and is responsible for the architecture and technical direction of the domain name registry services. He is involved in the engineering of the domain name registry services and interfacing with the domain name registry industry technologists on industry solutions and standards. He has developed expertise in the Domain Name System, application architecture, protocol development, applications programming, and information security. He is a document author in the REGEXT group.
James has more than 20 years of experience in the domain name registry industry, and prior to Verisign, he held management and engineering positions with Synxis, Microlog, and Intergraph. He has more than 30 years of experience in the technical industry with different levels of engineering, technical leadership, and management responsibilities.
James is an author of multiple Internet Engineering Task Force RFCs and many IETF internet-drafts associated with the domain name registry industry. These include extensions to the Extensible Provisioning Protocol, data escrow format, EPP to Registration Data Access Protocol status mapping, and bulk data file format. EPP is the standard protocol for the registration and management of internet infrastructure data, including domain names, and it is the protocol used between the domain name registrars and the domain name registry. During his 20 years at Verisign, he has created approximately 30 proprietary and IETF EPP extensions solving many different technical and business problems.
James holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science from the University of Maryland and a Master of Business Administration in finance from The George Washington University.
Eduardo Duarte | ICANN
Eduardo Duarte is a Technical Services Principal Engineer in the Global Domains Strategy (GDS) Technical Services Team at ICANN, a role he has held since 2023. He brings over 15 years of specialized experience in the domain name industry and registry operations. Prior to joining ICANN, Eduardo served as the IT Director for .PT, the national Top-Level Domain for Portugal. During his tenure at .PT, which began in 2009, he was instrumental in the implementation of Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) extensions and the strategic management of the registry system.
Eduardo’s early career focused on computer networking and VoIP network designs, with professional experience spanning Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Romania. A committed advocate for the technical community, he was one of the founders and drivers of PTNOG (www.ptnog.pt) in 2017. Over the last few years, he has participated in various national and international forums and meetings on Internet governance. Eduardo holds a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, with a specialization in Electronics Systems, from Instituto Superior Técnico.
Adiel Akplogan | ICANN
Adiel A. Akplogan is Vice President for Technical Engagement at ICANN. With more than 25 years' experience in the ICT industry (20 specifically in the Internet Technology Industry), Adiel has previously worked as CEO for AFRINIC (The African Network Information Centre), IT Director for Symbol Technology in France (2001-2003) and Director of New Technology at CAFÉ Informatique in Togo (1994-2000). Recognized as one of the Internet technology pioneers in Africa, he has contributed to technical capacity building and deployment of some of the first private Internet Service Providers in Africa from 1996-1999.
During his career, Adiel has served on the Boards and Advisory Committees of many global and international organizations such as the UN Internet Governance Forum Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF-MAG from 2006-2009), the Technical Advisory Committee of the United Nation Economic Commission for Africa (ATAC/UNECA from 2005-2006), the Executive Council of the Number Resource Organization (NRO – 2005-2015 as Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer), ICANN's Strategic Panel on its role in the Internet governance ecosystem, the African Union's AXIS program Steering Committee (2012-2015), the African Network Operators Group and the Africa Internet Summit's Administration and Program committee (AFNOG/AIS – 2000-2015) and the Organisation International de la Francophonie (OIF) Expert Group on Internet Governance (since 1999).
Passionate about Internet technology and its impact on human development, he has actively contributed to the setup of several technical coordination bodies in Africa such as the African Network Operators Group (AfNOG), the African ccTLD Managers Association (AfTLD), AfricaCERT, and the Africa Internet Summit (AIS).
Adiel Akplogan has a graduate degree in electrical engineering and holds a master’s degree in E-Business and New Technology Management from Paris Graduate School of Management. He lives and works from Montréal, Canada.
Edward Lewis
Edward Lewis was a Senior Technologist in the ICANN Office of the CTO. Prior to joining ICANN he worked 11 years inside Internet registries of many types - gTLD, ccTLD, sTLD and RIR. He worked for a DNS Hosting company. He co-chaired the original IETF WG that developed EPP. He developed some of the first DNSSEC codebases under the original DARPA contract in the 1990's. Before that, he worked building research networks attached to the NASA Science Internet (one of the three original backbones) and taught Networking courses at the University of Maryland - Baltimore County.
Mario Loffredo | IIT CNR
Mario Loffredo is a Senior Technologist and the Deputy Head of the “Digital Innovation” Unit at the Institute of Informatics and Telematics (IIT) of the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy, where he has been working since 2006. Since then, he has been involved in the technical management of Registro .it. He has been the leading developer of both EPP and RDAP servers as well as one of the main contributors to the design and implementation of the cybersecurity infrastructure. He actively participates in international forums such as ICANN-Tech, ROW, CENTR and IETF.
After graduating in Computer Science from the University of Pisa in 1992, he first worked as a researcher at the CNUCE Institute of CNR. His main research interests were software engineering and digital libraries.
After that, he held the position of Head of the R&D Department at an Italian ICT company working in the areas of systems integration, software engineering, reverse engineering of legacy systems and applications for industries and insurances.
Mario has been a consultant for Italian ministries and government organizations. He has authored many research articles, conference papers and technical documents. In particular, he is a co-author of three RFCs about RDAP extensions, three RFCs about the JSContact format and other IETF Drafts currently under evaluation.
Michael Palage | InfoNetworks LLC
Michael Palage is the Chief Trust Officer at InfoNetworks LLC. Michael has been actively involved in Internet Governance and ICT issues over the last twenty years. During this time Michael has been intimately involved in ICANN operational and policy matters in an individual and leadership capacity, including a three-year term on the ICANN Board of Directors. As CEO of Pharos Global, Inc. Michael provided consulting and management services to a wide range of domain name registration authorities. Since co-founding InfoNetworks in 2017, Michael has focused on building online trusted ecosystems incorporating federated verified data. Michael has testified before the United States Congress multiple times and has been an expert witness in both Federal and State courts in numerous legal proceedings.
Michael holds a Juris Doctor from Temple University Beasley School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University.
Jean Gilbert | Cofomo
Mr. Gilbert joined the Cofomo team specializing in Internet protocols (LGR, RDAP, EPP, IDNA, EAI, UA, etc.) in 2022. He is responsible for the organization of the Registration Operations Workshop (ROW) events at Cofomo. He was previously involved for more than 30 years as a manager in a multitude of R&D and product development projects in the field of telecommunications, ship situation awareness, target detection, sensor performance and data fusion in a maritime environment for various NATO member country organizations, projects, and trials.
Nicoleta Munteanu | Consultant
Nicoleta Munteanu is currently a consultant handling various project and event management responsibilities for Cofomo, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and Southern California Water Coalition. Since 2015, she has been leading the coordination efforts for Registration Operations Workshops.
She began her journey in the internet governance community in 2012 as the IDN Coordinator at ICANN. Her focus was on streamlining the processing of IDN ccTLD Fast Track applications and ensuring efficient handling and applicant support of Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) requests from various countries. Nicoleta played integral roles in multiple IDN projects, including the Root Zone Label Generation Rules (LGR) Development Project. Her responsibilities encompassed budgeting forecast, contracting, event organization, marketing, program data and project team management.
Before her tenure at ICANN, Nicoleta worked in Paris as an Event Manager at Reed Expositions France, where she orchestrated comprehensive professional trade shows.
Nicoleta holds a Master’s Degree in Logistics Management from Bordeaux University and an Engineering Degree from Metz University, France. She is multilingual, and speaks English, French, Romanian, Hungarian, and some Spanish.
Former Committee Members
Scott Hollenbeck | Verisign
Giovanni Seppia | ICANN
Steve Conte | ICANN
Marc Blanchet | Viagenie
David Conrad | ICANN