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
Scott Hollenbeck - Chair | Verisign
Scott Hollenbeck is a fellow of industry standards and technology in the chief technology officer organization, where he manages a team of engineers and researchers who focus on exploring innovation opportunities and emerging technologies. Scott has more than 30 years of expertise in the Domain Name System space, applications programming, systems architecture, network engineering, information security, financial analysis, and personnel management.
Prior to joining Verisign in 1998, Scott held management and engineering positions with Xerox Corporation. There, he chaired a cross-corporate group responsible for interoperability testing of all Xerox network and desktop software products. Before Xerox, Scott served as a first lieutenant officer in the U.S. Air Force.
Scott has authored many internet protocol standards, including: the Extensible Provisioning Protocol, a standard protocol for the registration and management of internet infrastructure data, including domain names; and the Verisign Registry-Registrar Protocol, a pre-cursor of EPP developed for use in the Verisign Shared Registration System; and most recently, he has co-authored the Registration Data Access Protocol, a standard protocol that was designed to replace the WHOIS protocol. He has been a contributor to several industry efforts related to domain names and internet security, such as internationalized domain names, public key cryptography, Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, the Extensible Markup Language, the Transport Layer Security protocol, and the ENUM protocol.
He has also served in various capacities on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ Expert Working Group on generic top-level domain directory services; the Internet Engineering Task Force’s Internet Engineering Steering Group; and the Web Extensible Internet Registration Data Service, Registration Protocols Extension, Extensible Provisioning Protocol Extensions, and Transport Layer Security working groups.
Scott holds a Master of Science in computer science and a graduate certificate in software engineering from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Science in computer science from the Pennsylvania State University.
Edward Lewis
Edward Lewis is 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 “Dig
ital 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.
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 Director of gTLD 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.
Giovanni Seppia | ICANN
Giovanni, Vice President for Implementation Operations at ICANN, has a solid operational and planning background that includes developing short-term and long-term operating plans and budgets, as well as a deep understanding of ICANN, its community, and the domain name industry ecosystem where he started working in early 1999. Giovanni’s experience includes regular engagement with various European Union (EU) governmental organizations, and involvement with academic institutions in Italy as a lecturer on topics such as project management, and European Union policies and programs.
Giovanni worked as EURid, the .eu, .ею (Cyrillic script) or .ευ (Greek script), registry manager, as External Relations manager for over 13 years and served as General Manager of the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), and Head of the External Relations department of the .it registry for five years. Giovanni also worked as ICANN's European Liaison Manager from January 2006 until May 2007. Prior to his involvement in the DNS industry, he worked for the European Commission in several roles.
He has been a CENTR Board Chair as well involved in several ccNSO committees, including the chairmanship of the ccNSO Strategic and Operating Committee.
Graduated in International Relations and Affairs at the University of Pisa, he attended the School for the Diplomatic Career in Florence.
Adiel Akplogan | ICANN
Bio coming soon...
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
Steve Conte | ICANN
Marc Blanchet | Viagenie
David Conrad | ICANN