Free2Innovate.net: Who Does Paul Twomey Work For?

I believe Mike Roberts had a similar arrangement when he was President, and no one complained. (That's not really a precedent though because I always understood that Mike was an interim CEO simply tasked with getting ICANN off the ground. It took longer than he -- or anyone else -- expected, but the arrangement with his consulting firm still made sense as a temporary arrangement. For Dr. Twomey though, this is a permanent gig.)

I doubt if the Argonaut arrangement makes a difference though. Under U.S. law, officers in a corporation, even a non-profit one, have a duty to loyalty to the corporation. Even if Dr. Twomey's pay comes from Argonaut, he is still an officer in ICANN, so he has that duty of loyalty regardless of which company issues his paycheck. If his duties between ICANN and Argonaut ever conflict, the law also imposes certain duties to both corporations with regard to that conflict (duties of disclosure and possibly recusal). All things being equal, it would probably be better to have the President be an employee of ICANN rather than of a third-party, but I assume other factors were at play when the Board selected Dr. Twomey as ICANN's President. (This also may have been a simple way to expedite the hiring, since a non-resident, non-citizen employee would need a work visa and might face difficult tax problems.)