Nominet Chair and Independent Non Executive Director

Five years ago Veredus helped Nominet to appoint a new Chair. We achieved an excellent outcome so, when the time came for a new Chair to be appointed they invited us to work with them again.

This time we were seeking candidates not only for the Chair role but also that of Independent Non Executive Director (NED). The exercise was very different as we were able to generate a much larger and stronger field of candidates - well over 150 – with around a third of these being very strong. Why? In part due to the increased profile of Nominet, and because of the constant efforts of Veredus to increase our exposure in the senior NED market. We have developed a market leading knowledge base in this market and were able to leverage this to attract this level of interest.

Nominet sit on the cusp of the private and public sectors – they are a private organisation but act as the guardian of the .uk domain and are, therefore, observed strongly by Government. For this reason they sought, candidates with experience in and exposure to both public and private sectors. Additionally, they had just completed a very difficult change in the constitution of the business so the membership needed added confidence in the new board.

With this in mind we presented a balanced shortlist for each position as reflected by the outcome. Baroness Rennie Fritchie was appointed Chair – Rennie has significant non executive experience including chairing a health trust, a university and acting as vice chair of a building society – additionally she chaired the Web Science Research Initiative at Southampton University and MIT until 2009.

Piers White was appointed to the Independent NED position – following a successful career in retail banking he now serves as NED of Croydon Economic Development Company Ltd, ACS International Schools Ltd and CIPFA Business, the commercial arm of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. He is also an NED of Ordnance Survey, a body with some similar commercial challenges under the gaze of Government.

We all feel that Rennie and Piers provide the ideal balance of experience and skills and look forward to hearing more of the development of Nominet.