New Chair and New Members for GÉANT Board of Directors

At the November GÉANT General Assembly (GA) meeting our members voted for the position of Chair of the Board and for two open GÉANT Board Member positions.

Andreas Dudler of SWITCH stands down after the maximum Board term of six years, the last two of which were as Chair of the Board. On behalf of the Board and the GÉANT community, CEO Erik Huizer thanked Andreas for his outstanding service and commitment, in what has been a particularly challenging time for the wider community.

New Chair

We’re delighted to announce that Gilles Massen, CEO of Restena, has been elected for a term of three years.

Gilles Massen – Restena – elected Chair of the Board, three-year term

Gilles joined Restena in 1999, first as a trainee building the first official website presenting Luxembourg, and shortly afterwards to automate the registration system for .LU domain names.

While being part of the daily operations of the NREN and involved in its growth, Gilles’ had many opportunities to break and fix its services, and help setting services like its CSIRT. However, the focus lied in evolving and managing the .LU infrastructure and services, including representing Restena in national and international fora, such as Centr (Council of European country-code top level registries) or ICANN.

In 2017, Gilles took over the management of Restena and started to be more directly involved with GÉANT matters and has been discovering new elements from the academic and research world ever since.

Currently Gilles serves on the board of directors of CENTR and LU-CIX (the Luxembourg internet exchange) and acts a country delegate in the e-IRG.

Commenting on today’s appointments, Gilles said, “It is an honour and a privilege to serve as Chair of the Board. GÉANT is a vibrant community serving the world of research and education which is, by definition, shaping the future of humanity. This is not only a daily motivation for all NRENs, but also drives the wish to personally invest my efforts in GÉANT’s future. As someone who is strongly consensus driven, I wish to make sure that GÉANT continues to cater for its members’ interests and to help to keep the organisation relevant and fit for the future.”

New Board Members

Two open positions were also voted for, following the stepping down as a Board Member after this meeting of Kristina Lillemets of the University of Tartu. On behalf of the GÉANT community, Andreas Dudler thanked Kristina for her excellent service these past three years. The second open position follows the previous departure of Eric Durieux of RENATER.

We are pleased to now announce the following Members have been elected to the GÉANT Board of Directors following the voting process:

• Heidi Fraser-Krauss – Jisc (elected for a three-year term)
• George Konnis – CYNET (elected for a three-year term)

Heidi Fraser-Krauss – Jisc – elected for a three-year term

Heidi is the CEO of Jisc, a role held since September 2021. Jisc is a not-for-profit membership organisation that provides the UK universities, colleges and skills sectors with a shared digital infrastructure including the UK’s NREN, Janet.

Heidi studied psychology and management studies at the University of Glasgow and started her career as a researcher studying how communication in the workplace supports innovation.

Heidi has since held a variety of executive board level leadership roles in higher education, most recently as executive director of corporate services at the University of Sheffield. In Sheffield she had strategic responsibility for all the core corporate services including general IT, research IT, HR, Communications and Estates and Facilities. Prior to Sheffield, she spent eight years at the University of York, as a member of the executive board, and she held a variety of roles including deputy registrar and director of corporate and information services.

Over the years Heidi has been responsible for almost all the services that underpin a university, including high performance computing, library and archives, planning and strategic change, and leading the technology change team at the University of St Andrews.

She was a member of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) advisory council for eight years, chair of Universities and College Information Systems Association (UCISA), and chair of the Russell Universities Group IT Directors (RUGIT).

In 2017 she was delighted to be named as female CIO of the year by Computing Magazine. She is a governor (Board member) of York College, her local further education provider. Heidi is married to a Professor of Physics and has three grown up children.

George Konnis – CYNET – elected for a three-year term

George is the Managing Director of CYNET, (Cyprus Research and Academic Network), and Head of the Cyprus Academic Computer Security Incident Response Team (CYNET-CSIRT).

He received his Diploma in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1992 and his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering in 1998 from the same institution, where he worked as a Researcher, Research Scientist, and Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems from 1992, 1998 and 2003 respectively.

During his career he has been an associate with various IT companies such as IBM S.A, Datamed S.A., Cyprus Telecommunication Authority, Delta-Singular Educational Services S.A, in a variety of roles such as Senior Project Manager, Software Development Team Leader, Senior IT Consultant, Director of Training. He has extensive experience as a project manager and software team leader in national level public institutions’ supply, installation, pilot operation and maintenance projects. In addition, due to his multiple years of experience in the management of organisations (both in management and as consultant) he was responsible for the preparation and implementation of business plans and budgets, development of strategic partnerships at local and international level, in management and employee training.

He has published 34 scientific papers in international journals and conferences. George has been active in numerous European R&D programmes in the field of Information Technology and was the principal researcher in several European and national research programmes. He is also a Marie Curie fellow.

The two new Board Members join existing Board Members:

• Ana Tavares Pinto of FCCN | FCT
• Federico Ruggieri of GARR
• Floor Jas of SURF 
• János Mohácsi of KIFÜ
• Lars Fischer of NORDUnet
• Paul Feldman – independent member

The GA is GÉANT’s highest governing body, in which representatives of its 39 member organisations meet at least three times a year and is also responsible for electing members to the GÉANT Board of Directors.