Hello everyone
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Welcome to May's Director's Corner! It's the
Like many of us, I'm pleased to beckon in the new month, tho' March had plenty to offer.
For me, it was a watershed month as I notified staff and members, in advance of it going public, of my intention to step back from leading Kantara in a few months time. (Apply here!). I'm at that time of life where attention is needed on personal finance, assets and property ... and life really. While I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of surmounting hurdles as they arose, Kantara has been all consuming. But life balance is important too, and mine is overdue for a reset. Also overdue is my need to switch my residency back to my home country of New Zealand for at least three years. So the time feels right to hit the reset button. Rather than having to work much of the night in New Zealand to operate in Kantara's primary time zones, it is time to to take a step back. It's only a step back (semi-retirement) ... it is not retirement! I will remain in and around Kantara, as well as around the industry, for quite a while yet. My involvement, however, will be at a more relaxed tempo than the deadline driven cadence that comes with leading a global community of three Kantara branded organizations.
My impending move wasn't Kantara's only news for March. Far from it.
Joining Kantara in March were new members Zenia Vasquez, Dedra Chamberlin, Manvendra Kumar and Roger Quint, together with renewing members Hindle Consulting and John Wunderlich. Thank you all! And for renewing members it's great to have your continued support! the Early May Bank Holiday this Monday in the UK tho' I suspect the ED's day will be much like any other regular Monday 
. The activity in a global organization never stops and this Monday is no exception.
I want to start this month's Director's Corner with a brief update on the status of the ED search. Following the reach-out to Members and then advertising the role on LinkedIn in late March, the Board received over 40 applications. In the past couple of weeks this total pool was reduced down to a shortlist of 5 that the Board is interviewing currently. All of these candidates are more than capable of doing the job and the process has brought about some interesting structural alternatives for the Board's consideration. The Board's job is anything but easy in making its final selection during May. An announcement will be made as soon as it can be.
We were thrilled to welcome LexisNexis to our membership ranks in April, joining Experian and Neustar as members from that sector of the ecosystem. Thank you! And many of you will have seen the tweet and LinkedIn post regarding members Renewing in April; 2Keys, Experian, Internet2, Verizon and individual contributor Mark King. Thank you one and all for demonstrating your support of Kantara's ethics and ethos and the activities that underpin our mission to grow and fulfil the market for trustworthy use of identity and personal data in pursuit of our vision to see equitable and transparent exchange of identity and personal data for mutual value.
The new Board including, as I announced last month, Directors at Large 2keys, Airside, Easy Dynamics and Wedacon, has started to work in earnest. Board members Experian, Airside and Wedacon, led by LC Board representative Andrew Hughes, have met several times to begin framing what the future might look like for Kantara’s Work and Discussion Groups. The results of their work will be put to the Membership for consideration later in this year. While they have worked on this, president Matt and myself have been working on the ED succession plan. The results of our our efforts members received before it went public. If you have a potential candidate for the ED job, please follow the instructions in the job advertisement to submit them.
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The FinTechTalents Identity conference aired on March 17th. But, of course, the preparation and pre-record activity started as the month opened. I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with Dai Banerji representing Women in Identity, our friend and fellow mDL journeyer Gail Hodges from the Future Identity Council, Andrew Black from Natwest Bank, and David Pollington from the GSMA. We developed discussion themes around the topic of ‘Privacy Enhancing, Consent Based Digital Identity'. Our discussion and debate focused on three points:
- should the financial service sector embrace a decentralised ID mode;
- how we can ensure that we build Digital Identity that enhances privacy and consent as well as granting users control over how their personal credentials are shared; and
- whether users are actually ready to take control of their digital identity.
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