Peter Dengate Thrush

Chairman, Top Level Domain Holdings

Peter Dengate Thrush is the Executive Chairman of Top Level Domain Holdings, and its subsidiary Minds + Machines. TLDH is the only publicly traded company focused exclusively on acquiring and operating new generic Top Level Domains ( “gTLDs”). Peter took up this position in July 2011, soon after finishing his fourth term as Chairman of ICANN.

He is a trial lawyer, specializing in Internet, intellectual property and technology cases. He is a registered patent attorney, and has practiced at the independent bar as a barrister sole since 1995. He has appeared in many reported NZ cases, and in most of the New Zealand Courts, including before the Privy Council. He practiced for 15 years, 10 as a partner, at Baldwin Son and Carey, where he was Head of the Wellington Patent Department and founder of the litigation practice.

He is currently a director of Brainfuel Limited ( see www.brainfuel.co.nz). BrainFuel provides online education courses to NZQA standards.

He is actively involved in international policy development and governance of the Internet, and is a past Chair of InternetNZ, (see Internetnz.org.nz) past Chair of the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association, (see www.aptld.org ) and immediate past current Chairman of the board of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Inc. (see www.icann.org) . He is a regular media commentator on Internet issues.

He is Chairman of the New Zealand Electricity Rulings Panel, a quasi-judicial body set up under the Electricity Regulations to determine disputes in the electricity industry. He is also a member of the New Zealand Copyright Tribunal. That body historically determined cases involving licensing schemes, but has assumed responsibility for allegations of copyright infringement on the Internet involving peer-to-peer file sharing.