Monday, March 26, 2018

For .STEPHANE

I just learnt today that Stéphane Van Gelder passed away.

My friend Murielle called me.

Many of us in France have worked with and for Stéphane. I personally worked many years with Stephane to launch new gTLDs at INDOM (which was then acquired by another company). He is the person who taught me everything that I did not know about domain names: he actually taught me that Versign was a thin registry and not a thick one: I did not know the difference...

When I joined INDOM, years ago, he also was the first French guy to have delivered .BRAND new gTLD studies when we did not even know when the first round of the ICANN new gTLD program would start. Actually, we were very good at what we did but he was the guy to think years in advance.

Stéphane was a person of precision. I remember the number of times he asked me to re-write things because I would not have seen a mistake in a word or have missed an accent: I remember going to his office at Indom 10 times a day and getting back to mine ultra pissed because I would have I missed a correction in a study.

...I don't really know what to write in such circumstances...

Today is a sad day.
    RIP Stéphane.

    More covers here and here.

    1 comment:

    LeahPenelope said...

    Hi Jean
    I can't believe this is real. Are you pulling our legs? Well you can't be..
    In the few times I'd met with Stephane at ICANN, he was always present, as in he was always clued in, and very focused. I admired the man and what he stood for. He did represent many fronts over the years. I liked him for his frankness too. His comment that the registrar system that I worked with back in 2014, was clunky couldn't be further from the truth. That didn't resonate with my boss too well but hey it was a sign to make improvements. RIP Stéphane, I'm sure you're missed by many.

    .BRAND new gTLD Reports are updated once a month: CLICK HERE !