Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson was appointed a director of WPP in 1999. She is chairman of EDventure Holdings, the pioneering US-based company focused on information technology and new media. Having recently sold her business to CNET Networks, the US based interactive media company, she is now their editor-at-large. She is an acknowledged luminary in the technology industry, highly influential in her field for the past 20 years, with a state-of-the-art knowledge of the online/information technology industry worldwide, and the emerging information technology markets of Central and Eastern Europe. An investor as well as an analyst/observer, she sits on the boards of IBS Group, Meetup.com, NewspaperDirect, CV-Online and Graphicsoft, and on the consumer advisory of Orbitz, among others.

Dyson is also Former Chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on the Advisory board of the elite networking group Renaissance Weekend, the Board of Trustees of the Eurasia Foundation which promotes the private sector in developing countries and the board of the Markle Foundation.

Career 1972, fact checker, reporter, Forbes magazine; 1977, Wall Street analyst for New Court Securities; joined Rosen Research and bought out the firm in 1983, changing its name to EDventure Holdings; numerous non-executive directorships, including i-Gabriel, WPP and Meetup.com; current or former member of advisory bodies including National Endowment for Democracy, Eurasia Foundation, Technology Empowerment Network, Institute for East West Studies, Global Business Network, Santa Fe Institute, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Markle Foundation; 1998-2000, founding chairman of ICANN, now on its advisory committee; former adviser to Al Gore as member of National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council; also advised Republicans through the Progress and Freedom Foundation^[1]

Notes

^ Richard Wray, The clean-up queen: Esther Dyson, internet guru, The Guardian, 31 January 2004.