Esther Dyson

Overview

Esther Dyson was appointed a director in 1999. In 2004 she sold her company, EDventure Holdings, to CNET Networks, the US-based interactive media company. She left CNET at the end of 2006 and now operates as an independent investor and entrepreneur, again under the name of EDventure. She has been highly influential for the past 25 years on the basis of her insights into online/information technology markets and social impact worldwide, including the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe and Asia. An active investor as well as an analyst/observer, she recently participated in the sale of Flickr to Yahoo! and of Medstory to Microsoft. She sits on the boards of non-listed start-ups including 23andMe (US), Boxbe (US), Eventful.com (US), Meetup Inc. (US), NewspaperDirect (Canada), CVO Group (Hungary) and Yandex (Russia). She is also an active investor in 'new-space" and aviation start-ups including Space Adventures, XCOR Aerospace, Icon Aircraft and Airship Ventures (all based in the US) and co-hosts the annual Flight School workshop for air and space entrepreneurs. She sat on the consumer advisory board of Orbitz until its sale to Cendant. She is also active in public affairs and was founding chairman of ICANN, the domain name policy agency, from 1998 to 2000. She currently sits on the board of the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates transparency in government and (among other things) is pushing US legislators to publish their daily diaries.