Nick is Executive Chairman and co-founder of Com Laude with Lorna Gradden. Nick has a real passion for the domain name industry and believes that it is currently an emerging industry in a time of great change. It’s a time where best practice is not well-established and not always relevant. However, it is fascinating and challenging to be working with some of the world’s leading brands, helping them to create and implement strategy.

He spends considerable time immersed in the ICANN environment representing client issues in policy discussions and staying abreast of the latest changes, to help keep clients abreast of the latest developments and enable them to make informed decisions about their online IP strategies.

Nick is also deeply involved in several IP organisations: as a director and council member of MARQUES, the European association of brand owners, an associate member of the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys and a committee member at the International Trademark Association.

For many years, Nick has acted at the cutting edge of rights protection in domain names, having edited “The Perfect Sunrise”, the influential booklet on pre-launch rights protection measures. He is a member of the editorial board of Managing Intellectual Property magazine, co-author of Domain Names: Global Practice and Procedure, published by Sweet & Maxwell and co-author of the rights protection mechanisms recommended to ICANN for the launch of new gTLDs.

Lorna is Co-Founder and Director of Com Laude. She has been working in domain name management since 1994 and co-founded Com Laude with Nick Wood. She is known for having client interests at heart in all aspects of her work and ensures all aspects of Com Laude run smoothly, taking responsibility for order fulfilment, registry relationships and information systems. A regular speaker at industry events, Lorna loves the ever-changing nature of the domain name space.

She previously co-founded Net Searchers with Nick Wood, a company described by Legal Business magazine as “possibly the best domain name management company in the world and certainly the first to treat domains as IP, not IT”.

After Nick and Lorna sold Net Searchers, she joined VeriSign DBMS in 2003 as head of client management for EMEA. For Lorna, job satisfaction comes from getting to work with fantastic people and when she’s not dreaming of domains, Lorna can be found tending vegetables on the South Coast of England. She says that her law degree is not quite as useful today as it was during the five years she spent managing a successful band.

Glenn Hayward is an experienced Chief Executive Officer with particular expertise working in Tech Companies, most notably in the Domain Name Industry. As Chief Executive Officer at Com Laude, Glenn is a Board member and one of the Leaders of the business, with specific responsibility for Strategy Development and Implementation, Corporate Affairs including Mergers and Acquisitions, oversight of Corporate Services and oversight of Brand Protection Services.

His previous role was Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary of CentralNic Group plc, the AIM listed domain name registry and registrar service provider. Prior to this role, Glenn was Executive Director, Business Development and Finance, at Nominet, the registry provider for the .uk namespace. Glenn was a board member at Nominet and led the Group’s diversification agenda including round 1 of the new top-level domain names programme, notably with a public-facing role on .wales and .cymru and through his work with .brand applicants.

Earlier in his career, Glenn was Business Analysis Manager for EasyJet plc and Finance Director for the SME division of Northgate Information Solutions plc.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from the University of Birmingham and a Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors in the United Kingdom (which focussed on Corporate Strategy and Leadership). In 2011 he was also awarded the Finance Director of the Future award at the UK’s FD Excellence Awards (endorsed by the Confederation of British Industry and the Institute of Chartered Accountants).

Jeff Neuman is Senior Vice President of Com Laude USA and has been instrumental in providing policy assistance and advice in the fields of internet governance, intellectual property protection and domain name policy since the mid-1990s. Based in Tysons Corner, Virginia, he is responsible for helping the Com Laude team expand their global reach into North America and to help provide additional strategic support to North American customers.

He particularly enjoys working with customers to achieve their strategic online goal. He has been heavily involved in the ICANN community, both on the intellectual property side as well as the gTLD registry side for almost two decades and has now become involved in issues affected domain name registrars. He is looking forward to bringing Com Laude’s unique domain portfolio management services to North American customers.

In his previous role at Neustar as business lead for its Registry Services team, Jeff was responsible for the sales, business development, distribution and management of Neustar’s Franchise TLDs, including .BIZ, .US and .NYC. He was also responsible for Neustar’s response to the new gTLD initiatives, including the launch and administration of each of its 350+ new gTLD applications.

Jeff is a frequent speaker on issues involving intellectual property, domain names, online dispute resolution and the introduction of new generic top-level domains. He served as the Vice Chairman of ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), Chair of the gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) and has chaired and participated in numerous ICANN working groups on domain name transfers, WHOIS, policy development, accountability, to name a few. He has also served on the board of the Domain Name Association (DNA), as well as the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies.

Jeff has a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, and a BA in Labor and Industrial Relations from Penn State University.

Andrew D. S. Lothian is a professional adviser with over 25 years of specialist litigation and intellectual property experience.  As Domain Consulting and ADR Director, Andrew is responsible for heading up and developing Com Laude Group’s suite of brand protection and ADR services.

Andrew has been at the forefront of online intellectual property protection since the advent of the commercial Internet more than 20 years ago and personally handled the first Scottish domain dispute before the Commercial Court of the Court of Session together with the world’s sixth largest domain name acquisition by value (IF.com). Earlier in his career, Andrew was a Solicitor in private practice specialising in litigation, during which he handled a number of high profile cases including the only Scottish challenge to the EU Maastricht Treaty, Monckton v. Lord Advocate, 1995 SLT 1201 (OH).

Andrew has been involved in online rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) since these developed in the early 2000s.  He was appointed as an Expert for Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service upon its inception in 2001, as a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Domain Name Panel in 2002, the CAC’s ADReu panel upon inception in 2006 and the CAC’s UDRP panel in 2019. In these capacities he adjudicates in both national and international domain name disputes.

In the new gTLD RPMs, Andrew served on the WIPO roster of panellists for the Legal Rights Objection procedure and decided one of only 69 LRO disputes provided by WIPO during the initial application round, Defender Security Company v. Merchant Law Group LLP, WIPO Case No. LRO2013‑0036.  Andrew also serves on WIPO’s roster of panellists in respect of Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (TMPDDRP) cases.

Andrew has spoken internationally on e-business and domain name issues since 1998. He maintains a range of contacts at the top level of the Domain Name System. He has been an enrolled Solicitor (Scotland) since 1990 and holds an LL.B. in Law and a Diploma in Legal Practice from the University of Edinburgh.

Penny is responsible for the delivery of client services and ensures that deadlines, expectations and opportunities are consistently achieved.

Clients benefit from her conviction that Internet intellectual property is a vital element of online branding; focusing not solely on the technical and policy aspects of the Internet but on the broader canvas such as the protection of intellectual property and the prevention of brand abuse; all within a framework of economy and prudence.

Further, Penny concentrates on aspects of a domain name portfolio from the end user’s perspective and facilitates regular research to ensure that clients are kept abreast of developments in the constantly evolving Internet landscape.

Throughout the last twenty five years, she has been involved in brand development, marketing communications and, as a director of an IT marketing consultancy, client care, project management and project delivery.

Penny studied Business Studies at The London Guildhall University and her professional background is in product marketing.

John is Commercial Director at Com Laude. He is a senior sales, marketing and strategy professional, who for the last 18 years has established a successful track record developing business in intellectual property services, including domain names. Since 2009 Intellectual Asset Magazine has named John as one of the 300 Leading IP Strategists from around the world.

John is passionate about delighting customers, constantly learning and developing; but most of all working with great people to create an authentic, positive culture and delivering beyond the sum of the parts.

For leisure he spends time with his family and enjoys physical challenges usually connected to running, cycling, swimming and / or the mountains.

John has a BSc Joint Honours in Biochemistry and Physiology from King’s College London and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Gareth is Com Laude’s Global Operations Director and joined the company in May 2018. He has 18 years’ experience of working in domain name management and served in multiple operational and technical senior management positions for both domain name registrars and registries. Over that time, Gareth has experienced and managed many of the major technological and operational changes affecting the industry and enjoys tackling the challenges and opportunities that these changes present.

Gareth leads a highly skilful and focused technical team whose primary aim is on providing our clients with the “best in class” online experience in domain name management and online brand protection.

Outside of work, Gareth is a keen road cyclist and is currently secretary of his local cycling club.

He holds a BA (Hons) degree in Geography from Middlesex University and a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of South Wales.

Kevin graduated from the University of Southampton in 2001, obtaining a BSc (Hons) degree in Accounting and Finance and is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Kevin joined the Com Laude Group in July 2018 bringing over 4 years of experience in the domain name industry having previously been Group Financial Controller of Centralnic Group PLC.

Kevin has a wealth of experience in both financial and management reporting and has worked on M&A transactions and integrations of both UK and multinational companies. Kevin is also our Company Secretary.

Ken has been involved in Internet domains and intellectual property for over 20 years. He is in charge of developing new business in North America by offering enterprise solutions to domain portfolio management as well as Front End Registry Management [FERM] services for .brand TLDs. Ken has been a member of the Intellectual Property Constituency at ICANN since 2001, is serving his third term on the Internet Committee at INTA, and has served two terms on the Cyberspace Team at MARQUES. He is a frequent speaker on domain issues and the ethics of trademark investigations.

Prior to joining Com Laude, Ken founded Marksmen with Jason Tirado, Mark Doerr, Rosemarie Fasullo and Grant MacCoon.

Marksmen is a world leader in brand protection and Ken was the company’s CEO and Chairman for 16 years. He remains active with Marksmen as owner, principal shareholder and consultant.

Ken is also the co-founder and contributing editor of Lute & Drum: An Online Arts Quarterly (luteanddrum.com) as well as selva oscura press (selvaoscurapress.com), a 501(c)(3), non-profit publisher of experimental poetry (selvaoscurapress.com). He received his BA in English from Auburn University.

Tim is Head of Brand Protection – in our intellectual property protection division. In this role Tim has advised some of the world’s foremost brands on Internet intellectual property matters over the two decades.

Tim also acts as an independent Expert for Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service – the award-winning dispute system for the .uk domain name space.

Tim keeps up to date with key developments in Internet policy and governance and served as a member of Nominet’s.uk policy stakeholder committee from 2013 to 2016.

Tim has specialised in Internet intellectual property since 1996 when he focused on the interaction between trade marks and domains as part of his IT and IP focused law degree at Southampton University.

As Group Client Services Director, Hayath runs one of Com Laude’s busiest teams, Client Management. She leads an ever-growing team of Client Managers, ensuring that they have the necessary skills and depth of knowledge to provide the high quality personal service that our clients, expect and deserve. She is an excellent people manager, and enjoys getting to know and develop her staff.

Hayath brings 11 years’ experience in the domain name industry to the team, including time spent as an in-house domain name expert at a FTSE 100 company, which has furnished her with a thorough understanding of the value a domain name has to its owner. She has a Master’s degree in Information System Analysis from Linkoping University, Sweden.

Yoshi Murakami has been involved in domains and intellectual property since 2002. He has managed extensive gTLD and ccTLD domain portfolios for clients and provided intellectual property advice to big brands throughout Japan.

A veteran of the ICANN community, he managed the applications for 24 dot brands from Japan and South Korea and has worked both as a registrar and registry provider. He has worked with Com Laude since October 2017.

Under Yoshi’s leadership Com Laude Japan offers the full suite of Com Laude and Valideus services: Corporate Domain Name Management for brands and large enterprises through to dot brand registry management services.

Mark is Business Development Manager for Com Laude. He is responsible for working with new and existing clients who want a quality service for their domain name portfolio management. Having worked in the internet industry for many years, Mark is known for his ability to get along with others and his approach to explaining complex technical subjects well.

A keen bee keeper, Mark is a member of ITMA and has a BA (Hons) Business and Finance from the University of Central Lancashire.

Sara is a Trademark Attorney with a master’s degree in New Technologies Law.
Sara started working on the Domain Name Industry in 2002 and has since worked at Law Firms, Registrars and Registries. She has been a member of the INTA for over 10 years and part of their leadership group since 2012. She has been a public speaker since 2002 for organizations like INTA, USPTO, APWG, or ACC among others.

Throughout these years she has worked on topics that affect Legal (Domain Name Management, Monitoring Solutions, Enforcement, UDRP, URS, C&D, Acquisitions, Policy), Marketing (Auditing and Managing Social Media, Mobile App, Counterfeit) and Security teams (Auditing and managing portfolios of DNS/SSL/DDoS/DNS Firewall).

Sara’s extensive background allows her to help clients audit their overall online presence so together they can create a tailor-made approach to protect their brand online. She helps brands finding and prioritizing legal and security concerns assisting in developing in-house stakeholder groups to make sure the appropriate internal groups work together in decisions that affect their presence online.

Languages: Spanish, English, Catalan

Trent joined Com Laude in April 2018 and is based out of our Tysons Corner, Virginia office. He brings over 18 years’ experience in the domain name industry to the team. He has provided brand protection for dozens of the worlds most recognized and valuable brands, most recently as the in-house domain portfolio manager for Amazon and business analyst for their new gTLDs. His past roles also include in-house domain portfolio management for AOL and digital brand management of Fortune 500 clients.

Trent’s diverse background with in-house intellectual property programs, registry, and registrar operations brings a unique perspective to brand owners who face challenges in the rapidly changing domain name space.

Outside of the office, he enjoys family time, attending Washington DC sporting events, exploring the great outdoors, and travel.

Phillipa is a Senior Client Manager and her attention to detail serves her well in this role. The task that stands out in Phillipa’s mind from her 12 years in the domain name industry is when she helped a major client register and acquire all of its domain names under Com Laude’s care over one hectic weekend. The work was confidential, delicate and a success. Clients rely on Phillipa for the expertise that is required for such a situation, and it helps that she builds up a healthy rapport with them too: her colleagues know her to be happy and enthusiastic.

Phillipa specialises in numerous registries, including .cn and .com.au. And, although it’s of little use in the domain name field, she loves to knit.

She has a Combined BA (Hons) in French and Spanish from Anglia Ruskin University.

Louise is a Senior Client Manager and being a completer finisher is ideally suited to her role at Com Laude, where clients issues are taken care of from start of query to resolution and fulfillment. Her sense of humour and busy spare time with family mean that she’s able to juggle the many widely varying tasks that she is faced with every day with ease.

She joined Com Laude in 2007 having previously run a graphic design company for over twenty years. Away from the office, Louise enjoys cooking and walking the dog.

She has a BA in Graphic Design from LCP, London.

Gary is a Senior Client Manager for Com Laude. He is an excellent project manager and has a strong will to succeed, passion, endless energy to do well and to contribute to the success of the company. During his time at Com Laude he has been particularly proud of the time oversaw the mass migration into Com Laude’s custodianship of a well-known corporation’s domain name portfolio.

Gary joined Com Laude in 2009 and is a regular windsurfer, so if he doesn’t answer the phone he’s probably to be found somewhere on the water.

Based in Valencia, Spain, ​Jasna is a Client Manager whose clients know her as reliable, patient, and thorough – and being determined and quick to complete their orders. Jasna has held a number of roles with the business since joining in 2009, including client invoicing and projects and research. She particularly enjoyed her research position, which included working closely with registries, staying abreast of their rules and regulations, and completing the onboarding process.

Jasna has handled domain names since the dot-com boom of the early noughties, when she worked with one of the largest web hosting and email providers. Then she moved in-house to lastminute.com, working as a marketing analyst and executive, handling the domain name portfolio for one of the UK’s most successful internet brands.

Away from work, Jasna enjoys gardening and swimming.

She has a BSc (Hons) in Biology.

Based in Seattle, Washington, Matt is a Senior Client Manager and responsible for several North American clients. He joined Com Laude USA in 2015 following two years with a global giant technology firm, where he managed their domain name portfolio. This industry experience, has furnished him with first-hand knowledge of the challenges faced by multinational brand owners in the new gTLD era. At Com Laude USA, he works with clients to fully understand their objectives and service their domain name management needs to enhance their portfolios.

In his spare time he enjoys attending sporting events, learning musical instruments, and expanding his encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure facts.

He has a BA in Business Administration, with a concentration in Management Information Systems from the University of Washington Bothell.

Based in Edinburgh, Graeme is one of our Senior Client Project Managers. Having joined the industry in 2007, he took the lead on managing client applications within various Top Level Domain launches, such as .ME, .ASIA, .CO, .XXX & more recently .SCOT.

Graeme’s breadth of knowledge within the Domain, DNS & SSL Certificate spaces underpin and support his passion to ensure clients receive the best possible service both from him directly and across the business.

Graeme is an accomplished musician, playing several instruments although his passion is for the Trombone, which he took up over 25 years ago. He has played with several Brass Bands, as well as multiple orchestras and swing/dance band ensembles. One particular, repeated, highlight has been to represent Scotland at The National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain 1^st section Finals on three separate occasions.

Dylan is a Senior Client Manager for Com Laude. He joined Com Laude just before the launch of .XXX, and was soon thrown in at the deep end and tasked with meeting the phenomenal demand for the trademark-block phase. It is at times like this when Dylan’s reliability and close attention to detail are drawn on by the team. And with work at an e-commerce web design agency under his belt, Dylan knows the importance of brands in the online world.

Dylan joined Com Laude in 2011. Working for Com Laude feeds Dylan’s passion for technology and he thoroughly enjoys the opportunity he gets to help his clients by seeing their queries through from start to finish.

He holds a Trademark Administration Certificate for successfully completing the ITMA Trademark Administrators’ Course.

Dino Kusanovic obtained his marketing degree from DOBA Faculty of Applied Business and Social Studies, Slovenia, in 2014. He moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2016 to start his career at Demys Limited as a Domain Name Consultant. Dino was quickly promoted to the role of Client Manager and managed portfolios for some of the world’s biggest brands, providing assistance with their domain names, DNS and SSL certficates.

In 2019 he joined the Intellectual Property protection division as a Brand Protection Manager. Utilising his broad range of skills and expertise, Dino supports famous brands in protecting their online presence and safeguarding their image in the ever changing cyber environment.

Umberto is a Client Manager and is our transfers expert. Tenacious and with the patience that Neopolitans are famed for, he is regularly consulted by colleagues who require his expertise with a portfolio transfer. A wide variety of previous roles in industries as diverse as property and transport has loaded Umberto with excellent customer relationship skills. With more than five years’ experience in the domain name industry, he speaks fluent DNS as well as Italian.

Umberto is a people person – outside of work he likes to spend time with family, play tennis and host dinner parties. He has a BBA (Hons) Business Administration (Tourism Management), (2:1) from the Faculty of Villa Campolieto, University of Herculaneum.

Camisa is a Client Manager in our Seattle office. Her background of customer service and marketing for large retail businesses means she is well-placed to handle the tricky queries of domain name management for her clients. An organised approach to work, coupled with the ability to connect and communicate with others is ideal for her role.

Camisa joined Com Laude in 2016 and has a degree with a major in Business Administration and a concentration in Marketing from Western Washington University.

Borut is a Client Manager based in the Edinburgh office. He joined the domain industry over 5 years ago working for a registrar as a software developer, quickly rising to the position of Operations Manager, before moving to Scotland in 2016 to work for Demys.

He is always keen to learn about the domain name industry and expand his knowledge of DNS and SSLs. Borut enjoys clients’ varied requests and particularly thrives on their complex queries.

Out of office, Borut can be found on his motorbike in the Scottish highlands and islands, or in the gym training kickboxing.

Jim Morales is a Client Manager based in our Seattle office. Jim worked in a number of different sectors in the past including five years for the US Air Force.

The fact that Jim has gained a great deal of experience in client and project management before joining Com Laude has been a real bonus, as he is able to consistently work to very high standards in an extremely professional manner.

Jim holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Texas in San Antonio as well as an Associates of Applied Sciences from Seattle Central College in Social Work.

Afton joined Com Laude in 2016 and is a Client Manager based in the Eastbourne Office. She grew up in Germany and before joining Com Laude worked in various sectors and countries.

Afton has a great deal of experience in project management and customer service which helps with her day to day tasks such as transfer, reassignment and registration projects.

She enjoys bringing a new clients portfolio into our management, and building a friendly relationship with the key contacts.

Afton loves travelling and visiting new places, although her bank balance doesn’t quite like this as much as she does!

Jaike joined Com Laude in 2017 and is a client manager based in the Eastbourne office.

Prior to working at Com Laude Jaike was a plumbing and heating engineer for 5 years before wanting to move on to something more challenging.

Jaike spent 7 years growing up in Germany and has enjoyed living in different countries and places. He likes learning new skills and seeing new places and his hobbies include films, shows and being a bit of a gaming geek.

James joined Com Laude in July 2016 and currently works in the Eastbourne office. His day-to-day tasks involve registrations, transfers and management of clients domains. Outside of the office, James plays tennis and his favourite football team is Crystal Palace.

Zac is a Senior Client Project Manager based out of Seattle, Washington, and is responsible for several North American clients. He joined Com Laude USA in 2015 after three years with a global technology corporation, where he managed their domain name portfolio. His experience within the corporate domain name ownership industry gives him a unique perspective of the challenges that companies face with the ever-expanding industry of domains. At Com Laude USA, he uses his experience to better assist his clients in achieving their brand protection and expansion goals.

When Zac is not at work, he enjoys photography, sporting events, building computers, and reading about the “next big thing” in the world of technology.

He has a BS in Psychology with a minor in Geography from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

Toneé joined Com Laude at the beginning of the year (2018) after working in Customer Service and Management for 6 years. Tonee thoroughly enjoys ensuring customers and clients are satisfied with services, and always helps to ensure they receive the best teaching and training.

Outside of the office Toneé loves to socialise and spend time with loved ones and is allegedly the best tea and coffee maker in the office.

Sandra holds a Bachelor (Honours) of Computer Science (Graphic Design Major) from The London Metropolitan University, UK and has over 10 years of experience in the field.

Sandra approaches any problem with meticulous attention to details incorporated with simplicity, clarity and beauty. Her favourite quote is “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci

Outside of the office her interests are Photography, Painting, Art Film and Tennis. Sandra speaks English, Serbo-Croatian fluently.

Susanna is our Head of Legal working out of our London office. Susanna is a lawyer with over 15 years’ post-admission experience in England, and is also qualified in Australia. Susanna has worked with Com Laude since 2009.

Before that, she had 8 years’ experience in top tier law firms in London and Canberra. Susanna is a general commercial lawyer with a background in insurance litigation. She holds a combined BA / LLB (Hons) from the Australian National University, Canberra

Crescent has spent close to 5 years as a Client Project Manager, advising Valideus’ corporate clients on their new gTLD registry launches. Having started his training contract in January 2017, Crescent now acts as Legal Counsel in Com Laude’s Legal team after qualifying as a Solicitor in 2019.

Mercedes is Head of Research and Projects and is known amongst our clients for her wealth of domain name experience. She is responsible for looking after two main clients and organising and managing the research team, being sure that deadlines are met, issues/news looked into and contracts are signed on time for new gTLDs. She also helps solve issues for Client Managers, data cleaning, contact with new gTLDs registries for queries and Premium names, amongst other tasks.

In a previous role, she built and maintained a database of domain registry requirements, policies and prices.

Calm under pressure and highly organised, Mercedes works from our Valencia base and helps out with Latin American and French-speaking registries. After a decade in the domain name industry, Mercedes has assembled a three-dimensional picture of how domain names increase awareness of a brand, an asset as prized as her ability to manage the team.

She joined Com Laude in 2006 and has a BSc in Business and Economy from the University of Valencia, Spain and a Masters in Translation from the University of Westminster, London.

Kirsty joined Com Laude in 2012 after having worked for over 13 years in the Intellectual Property department of the second largest luxury goods company in the world, where she centralised and managed the domain name portfolios and digital certificates for a large number of prestigious global brands, reduced costs significantly by establishing relationships with registries, as well as provided trade mark, domain name due diligence and other searches and strategic domain registration advice. Prior to this she worked for 4 years as an IP Administrator, primarily on global patent formalities, in the Patents & Licensing Department of a china clay research laboratory in Cornwall, where she grew up.

With so many years of experience in the Intellectual Property world, Kirsty now works in Com Laude’s Projects & Research team and provides meticulous attention to detail researching current domain policies and regulations for ccTLD and gTLD registries, conducting special client research projects, TLD registrar onboarding, as well as writing newsflashes and newsletter articles for the Group. Kirsty’s work assists both Client Managers and clients, keeping them up-to-date on TLDs and their requirements. Kirsty also works to ensure that Com Laude’s compliance obligations are kept in top order as an accredited registrar for multiple domain registries around the world.

She single-handedly managed the launch timetables, registrar onboarding and client news updates for the first-generation of new gTLDs launched from 2013 to 2017, liaising with registries and ensuring that Com Laude achieved accreditation status in as many open new gTLDs as was possible in time for the Sunrise launch periods for clients.

Kirsty also researches the new gTLD content for the yearly Com Laude & Valideus Gazetteer of Top Level Domains, providing an overview of 1,600 domain registries and their policies.

Away from work, Kirsty enjoys singing as a soprano in one of the leading choirs in the South-West of England, the Three Spires Singers, as well as playing folk and international music with her partner in their piano-violin duo We’re ÓK and the Cornish coastline.

Clare is a Research Manager working out of our Eastbourne office. She is responsible for liaising with new gTLD Registries around the world, looking into updates and developments in the domain industry and writing news articles on them. Clare is involved in researching registry requirements and ensuring internal compliance with contracts and regulations. She also works on domain due diligence and internal trade mark matters.

Before joining Com Laude in January 2018, Clare had 10 years’ experience in the Trade Mark profession, latterly working in top tier firms advising on brand protection, portfolio management and domain name recovery. Clare is a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney, and she holds an LLB (Hons) from the University of Surrey.

Phil is a strategic marketing and communications professional and Board advisor with in-depth experience of working with non-profits, intellectual property and technology businesses spanning over 25 years. He advises businesses on growth, communications and development strategies, using his deep understanding of developing successful businesses through broad stakeholder engagement.

At Com Laude he leads the marketing and communications team to support the growth of the business. He has previously held senior roles at Nominet, the not-for-profit membership organization responsible for the .uk domain name infrastructure; W3C UK and Ireland; and management, training and IT consultancy, Axon. Phil has an M.Eng & Man from University of Birmingham.

Huw is Com Laude’s Head of Development and QA. Huw comes from a development background has managed development teams and worked in the domain name industry since 2001. Huw was operated in roles for both registrars (Net Searchers, Register.com, Com Laude) and registries (Telnic). Huw holds a BSc Honours(1:1) in Computer Studies from the University of Glamorgan. Outside of the office Huw is a keen Cyclist – ‘Miles are my Meditation’.

Michael is Com Laude’s Head of IT Operations. With a background in development, he joined Com Laude in 2005, and has been involved in settings up Com Laude’s IT systems since the company was founded, including technical infrastructure, DNS, front end systems, and registry integrations. Outside of IT, Michael is a windsurfer and fantasy writer.

Mike has been in the domain industry for nearly 20 years, and with Com Laude since 2006. A shrewd investigator with a keen eye for detail, Mike ensures all aspects of Com Laude run smoothly and are done in the interests of both the company and our clients. Colleagues turn to Mike for counsel on approaches to complex processes and data analysis. He’s a problem solver. That might be why he is also our resident Excel expert. He loves it – others don’t, so they come to him for advice and encouragement when their brains can’t quite switch to Excel mode.

Outside of the office Mike is a competition winning travel photographer who, in the same time he has worked for Com Laude, has visited over 40 countries and had work exhibited across the UK, and in venues which include St Paul’s Cathedral.

David is Com Laude’s Senior Application Architect. With experience at both registries and registrars he has a very deep understanding of the domain industry and the technology that drives it. Keen on experimenting with new products and technologies David is the first to volunteer to producing a programmatic solution to any challenge. He primarily works with the intellectual property protection division on Big Data to identify any references to client’s brands online.

His previous role with Demys was Chief Technology Officer with a focus on developing company technology provision to improve service delivery and enhance the client interaction and experience with the company’s systems; together with working on the development of new service offerings for all domain name matters – be they brand related, technology related or of a policy and governance nature. Prior to that, his first involvement with the domain industry began in 2013 when David worked at a registry as Head of Technology.

David holds a Bachelor (Honours) of Computer Science (Programming) from the University of Maribor, Slovenia and speaks English, Russian and Slovenian fluently.

Marta is PA to the Directors and Events Manager for Com Laude and Valideus businesses. She makes sure we have the right venues and all is set well for events where we host clients, whether at ICANN meetings or closer to home, when we host our own events.

Marta joined Com Laude in 2014, after 10 years of experience in the hospitality industry in Poland, Italy and London.

Marta is Polish, and prior to moving to London was based in Florence, Italy, where she studied Italian.

She speaks Polish, Italian and English fluently and has a Bachelors degree in History of Art at Jagiellonian University, Krakow Poland.