LACNIC announces the departure of the organization's founder and CEO, Raúl Echeberría

Montevideo, 21 April 2014. Today, Oscar Messano, President of LACNIC's Board of Directors, announced that the organization's CEO, Raúl Echeberría, will be leaving his position at LACNIC next June 30.

Raúl Echeberría was one of the founders of LACNIC. He was part of the group that initially began working on the creation of LACNIC back in 1998. In June 2000, he formally joined LACNIC's Interim Board of Directors, which he chaired until November 2002. After the organization obtained formal recognition as a Regional Internet Registry, Echeberría was appointed Executive Director and CEO.

Under Echeberría's leadership, LACNIC has grown significantly as an institution and has developed its ability to affect and bring a Latin American and Caribbean voice to the Information Society.

During all these years, LACNIC has tirelessly worked in defense of an open, participative and transparent governance model and in defense of the Internet's core values, always in line with the organization's vision of making the Internet a platform for economic, social and human development and a catalyst for the exercise of human rights.

"In his almost 12 years as CEO, Raúl led the construction and growth of LACNIC, which went from being an organization with only 100 members and a budget of U$S 150,000 to becoming a regional and global reference with over 3500 members and a budget of almost $S 6 million. Raúl has taken our organization to levels of success and recognition we could never have imagined," said Oscar Messano, President of LACNIC's Board of Directors.

While serving as LACNIC's CEO, Raúl Echeberría projected himself to international positions such as the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), the Multistakeholder Advisory Group to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF-MAG), the Internet Society's Board of Trustees, and the Netmundial Executive Council, thus placing LACNIC in a place of privilege within the global Internet community.

 "Cycles must come to an end. I have no words to express my gratitude to the LACNIC Board for the trust they deposited in me as the organization's CEO during all these years. We have built an outstanding team of human resources at LACNIC. Without this team's dedication and commitment and the constant support of the Board, it would have been impossible to reach the success we have achieved. It is now time to develop new leaderships at LACNIC and for me to undertake new personal challenges," said Echeberría.

Echeberría will continue to serve in his current role until 30 June 2014, after which Ernesto Majó (Ernesto@lacnic.net) will be in charge until the new CEO is in office. A call for candidates will be published shortly.

"We wish Raúl the greatest success in the future. I am sure he will approach his new undertakings with the same passion and dedication with which he has led LACNIC," added Messano.

An official farewell session will be held for LACNIC's outgoing CEO on Thursday, 8 May at the LACNIC 21 meeting to be held in Cancun. LACNIC would like to invite the community to join us for this well-deserved tribute.