CentralNic Group PLC (LON:CNIC), a global internet platform company that derives revenue from the subscription sales of internet domain names and internet services, has today announced an internal leadership restructuring, including key new appointments. The new structure reflects the Company’s strategy of deploying specialist teams and platforms for each customer type, to drive global expansion, whilst drawing on a common core of shared services under a uniting set of values, policies and objectives.
NEW HIRES
Tracey Hickling has been recruited as the Chief People Officer, responsible for making CentraNic Group an inspiring workplace for global talent, ensuring that the Company’s structure, leadership and people are aligned, motivated and engaged to achieve corporate objectives. After starting her career at Deloitte Human Capital Services, Tracey was Global Head of HR for the Management Consulting arm of Cap Gemini and most recently SVP of People, PR and Administration for Shionogi Europe.
Robbie Birkner has been recruited as the Head of Reseller Division, joining CentralNic with 20 years of experience in the domain industry. His former roles include: Director of Sales and International Business at Key-Systems (now a CentralNic subsidiary); Director of Global Domains and General Manager, Canada, of Hostway Corporation; General Manager of DomainPeople; Director of International Sales for the .ME registry; and founding partner in Hexonet (now a CentralNic subsidiary). In his new role, Robbie has oversight of CentralNic’s international reseller platform businesses, including Key-Systems, Hexonet, PartnerGate and Toweb.
NEW APPOINTMENTS
Oliver Fries has been appointed Head of Shared Services, in which role he oversees technology and other shared services for the Reseller, Retail, Registry Solutions and Brand Services business. Oliver brings over 17 years of experience in technical and management roles and will be overseeing key activities around infrastructure, systems, development, support and domain procurement. He was previously CTO of CentralNic subsidiary Key-Systems and has played a key role in shaping the technical solutions as well as helping the company to grow and evolve. He formerly worked in the Telecommunication sector as a software developer and project manager.
Stuart Fuller has been appointed as the Head of Brand Services division, which delivers domain portfolio management and brand protection services to Corporate clients globally, as well as retaining certain group-wide commercial operations responsibilities. Stuart brings over 14 years of experience in the industry and joined CentralNic three years ago as Group Commercial Director, after eleven years at corporate domain name management and brand protection firm NetNames (formerly Group NBT). His earlier career was in the telco industry, with Cable and Wireless and other leading companies.
Gavin Brown has been appointed Head of Registry Solutions, providing registry software and managed services to country code Top-Level Domain names globally, as well as being the world’s leading distributor of new Top-Level Domains, with over 47% global market share. Gavin brings over 20 years of experience and is CentralNic’s longest-serving employee. He will also retain his role as Chief Innovation Officer for the Group. Before taking that role in 2019, Gavin was CTO of CentralNic for fourteen years.
Tony Kim has been appointed as the Head of Product, responsible for managing the new product selection and onboarding process across Group companies. Tony has over 18 years of experience in the industry, and was formerly Manager of CentralNic’s Hexonet reseller business, which he co-founded in 2009. He was previously General Manager at Hostway Canada and Director of Product Developer for Hostway Corp USA.
DIRECTORATE CHANGE
Alex Siffrin has decided it is time for a new challenge and will step down from his role as COO, as well as his board position. As founder of Key-Systems (later KeyDrive) Alex joined CentralNic when the reverse takeover of KeyDrive took place on 2 August 2018. He joined the board of CentralNic on 30 July 2019.
Ben Crawford, CentralNic CEO, commented: “I take great pleasure in welcoming our new hires and appointees into their new roles and I am confident we have the best team in place to maintain our track record of growth. In these difficult times, these new hires and changes reflect our confidence in the robustness of our business, providing domain names and internet services to millions of customers globally; a core infrastructure that enables the functioning of email and websites and some of the most important communication tools between work colleagues and between companies and their customers.”
