What I Work On
I advise registries, registrars, RSPs, and brand protection teams facing decisions where getting it wrong is costly. Stalled growth. Abuse that has become a contractual problem. A market that doesn’t respond to the usual playbook. An operational transition that has to happen without breaking anything.
Thirty years inside this business means I have usually seen a version of the problem before. What follows is where most of my work has landed. It’s not a menu, and not a boundary.
A sampling of what I’ve done:
I built the go-to-market sales and product marketing functions for iQ Global’s DNS abuse management and domain analytics platforms, closing business across 180+ TLDs and ccTLDs and repositioning the company brand in the market from RegistryOffice to iQ.
I took two brand protection products to market through corporate registrar channels, and brought an API version to market via a partnership with Dynadot.
I helped build the dotMobi (.mobi) TLD from zero registrations to over one million paid active domains under management, a Top 20 registry operator out of roughly 270 worldwide at the time, by constructing a 250+ reseller network across 120 countries, then assisted in its acquisition by Afilias (now within Identity Digital) and stayed on to launch two new product lines globally.
I co-managed a successful MIIT accreditation process in China for TLD Registry Ltd., meeting directly and repeatedly with ministry officials and other stakeholders to secure formal government approval in 2017. That process doesn’t have a manual. It requires patience, relationships, and the ability to navigate systems designed to be opaque.
I managed a live RSP backend migration for two TLDs already in General Availability without disrupting registrants. It is one of the most technically and operationally fraught transitions a registry can undertake.
I co-founded and built two corporate domain records management and brand protection companies: Internet Domain Names, Inc., sold to Network Solutions, and Arcemus LLC, sold to Iron Mountain.
Growth, channel and distribution
The problem. Once a TLD or registry business is operating, commercial, policy, technical and channel issues rarely stay neatly separated. Growth stalls because of distribution, or operations, or partner strategy, or market fit, or regulatory friction — and usually more than one at the same time, which is why single-cause explanations are almost always wrong.
Underneath it all sits the same constraint. Registrar shelf space is finite, and attention is scarcer than inventory. Every registry has to answer the same question: why a registrar would spend limited promotional capacity on them. Most roadmaps reach that question far too late.
Where I help. Working out which lever actually moves the number, and in what order. Registrar recruitment, activation and incentive design. Pricing and promotion that doesn’t quietly destroy renewal economics. Introductions to the partners who matter for your segment.
DNS abuse, trust and compliance
The problem. DNS abuse is no longer just a compliance issue. It is a trust, reputation, contractual and operational issue at once, and many organisations still struggle to connect policy expectations with workable detection, mitigation and response. The volume and sophistication of automated abuse keep rising, while the tolerance of regulators, contracting parties, and the press keeps falling.
Where I help. Assessing posture against contractual and regulatory expectations. Detection and metrics design: what to measure, what a threshold actually means, what is noise. Response workflow: who decides, how fast, on what evidence, with what record. Solution evaluation and vendor guidance, including testing what the marketing claims. Business development partnerships for abuse detection and mitigation services. Reporting that holds up under outside scrutiny.
Brand protection and proactive blocking
The problem. Trademark holders, registries and registrars need more proactive ways to prevent abusive registrations before harm is done, but many still rely on reactive workflows that are costly, duplicative or simply too slow.
Where I help. Connecting brand protection goals to scalable operational approaches. Blocking models, channel strategy, and the commercialisation of protective services.
International and hard markets
The problem. Some markets don’t respond to the standard playbook. China is the clearest case: different channel structures, different regulatory reality, different assumptions about what a domain is for — but it isn’t the only one. Most entry attempts fail on relationships and operational detail rather than on strategy.
Where I help. An honest read on whether there is a business there, at what cost and on what timeline. Channel and partner identification, with introductions where I have standing. Regulatory and stakeholder navigation. Localisation and product fit.
Operational transitions
The problem. Backend migrations, acquisitions, integrations and platform changes are where registries find out what their documentation was actually worth. High-consequence, low-glory projects: nobody notices when they go well, everybody notices when they don’t.
Where I help. Planning and coordinating transitions that must happen without disrupting registrants or channel partners. RSP evaluation and onboarding. Commercial and operational due diligence. Keeping the commercial side running while the technical side moves.
Interim and fractional leadership
The problem. You need senior commercial or operational leadership now. Through a launch, a transition, an integration or a search, and a full-time hire is either months away or not the right answer.
Where I help. I step in as an interim or fractional commercial, business development, or registry operations lead. Owning the number, running the team, making the calls, and documenting the work so it survives my departure.
Not on this list?
Above are the areas where most of my work has landed, not the limits of what I take on. Thirty years in an industry this interconnected means useful experience rarely stays inside neat categories, and some of the best engagements I’ve had began with a problem raised by a client or prospective employer. If it’s adjacent, ask!
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