Thomas Rickert is an attorney-at-law in Germany. He is the managing partner of Rickert Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH, a law firm based in Bonn, Germany. Thomas has extensive experience in the domain industry working on domain disputes as well as advising Registrars, Registry Service Providers and Registry Operators both on contractual as well as policy matters. At eco—Association of the Internet Industry (international.eco.de), Thomas is Head of the Names & Numbers Forum (international.eco.de/topics/names-numbers/). He is a member of the EPDP team at ICANN representing the ISPCP. Thomas is an expert speaker on domain related subjects both at the national and international level. Thomas served on the Council of the Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO), which is the body responsible for developing policy for generic domain names, for four years (2011-2015). He was one of the co-chairs of the CCWG-ACCT, a group that worked on improving ICANN’s accountability in preparation for the IANA Stewardship Transition. From 2002-2005 Thomas was President of the INHOPE Association (wwww.inhope.org).