By Amy Cadagin, M3AAWG Executive Director 

Each year, M3AAWG continues to produce crucial best practices and industry guidance, and this is clearly due to the contributions of our dedicated members and, particularly, our officers. These individuals exemplify M3AAWG’s mission to build a safer online ecosystem for all through collaboration within the anti-abuse community.  

M3AAWG officers are leaders not only in their own companies, but across the industry, and use their extensive expertise to drive major initiatives and create solutions which advance our mission. They uplift voices and insights around them, creating space for open communication and new, fresh perspectives. 

We held elections for these positions this February, I’m proud to introduce our exemplary 2021-2022 M3AAWG officers, who will serve for 12-month terms: 

Severin Walker, Co-Chair
Severin Walker is a key M3AAWG member and leader, bringing his almost 20 years of experience across messaging security and incident response at Comcast. Severin is dedicated to fostering connections, especially uplifting the voices of our newest members and driving international collaboration, to develop innovative solutions and best practices to combat online abuse. 

Throughout his time at M3AAWG, Severin was Chair of both our Messaging and Technical committees, and has served as the Board Chairperson for the past four years. As Chair, he has led many of the outreach efforts to establish partnerships with other industry organizations to propagate M3AAWG’s mission and approach globally resulting in regionally-focused anti-abuse working groups.

“The safety of Internet users’ communications and online experience has always depended on the collaboration of many segments of our industry. As security threats have grown in complexity and scale, I am proud to continue to lead M3AAWG as it continues its evolution to include the various types of Internet services, communications platforms, and global incident response teams that build defenses against these threats.” -- Severin Walker 

Janet Jones, Co-Chair
Janet Jones joined M3AAWG back in 2014 and has been instrumental in helping the organization to tackle major security problems, particularly around non-consensual pervasive monitoring of email, voice, and other network traffic. Prior to becoming Co-Chair, Janet was Vice Chair for 4 years, and also currently serves Co-Chair of the Data and Identity Protection Committee, where she actively develops protocols and industry best practices for implementing measures that protect operational security and customer privacy. Additionally, Janet leads M3AAWG’s Diversity & Inclusion strategic direction and key initiatives, including recently spearheading new communications principles to avoid biased language.  

Janet has over 20 years of industry experience. At Microsoft, Janet is a senior security program manager in the company’s Customer Security and Trust Engineering organization, where she leads security external outreach engagements across the industry and for government entities both in the US and internationally. She is responsible for providing strategic insight, feedback, and thought leadership to executives for current and emerging security trends and technologies across the industry and government sectors and is the owner of Microsoft’s security policies, standards, and requirements for online services.  

“The past year introduced many new changes and challenges in the world. Through accelerated malicious and criminal activities, M3AAWG stood strong and continued to fight online abuse, adapting to a new cybersecurity normal. I am honored and thankful for the opportunity to lead and work alongside global industry experts to continue to provide best practices to solve existing and evolving online abuse challenges. I am also committed to doing this while ensuring a diverse and inclusive culture for our members and partnering communities.” -- Janet Jones 

Matthew Thomas, Vice Chair 
Matt Thomas joined M3AAWG in 2017, and he is a distinguished engineer as chief security officer (CSO) of Verisign's cyber security strategy and research department. His research focuses on numerous aspects of internet security, stability, and resiliency including but not limited to DDoS attacks, domain name abuse, miscreant behavior within the Domain Name System (DNS), and large-scale measurements and evolving trends in internet architectures.

“Keeping the DNS safe from a broad spectrum of threats is tremendously important for me and for my colleagues at Verisign. These threats never stand still. They’re constantly evolving, and the entire community’s efforts to counter them must constantly evolve too. Since I’ve been involved with the M3AAWG I’ve seen the ways in which effective, global collaboration can bring about real progress in all areas of internet abuse. Our Board is composed of experienced and well-respected leaders from around the globe who bring valuable experience to the community as a whole. I look forward to continuing to contribute to the work of the M3AAWG as vice chair.” -- Matthew Thomas

Sam Silberman, Treasurer 
Sam Silberman, continuing his seven year tenure as treasurer, joined M3AAWG in 2005 as a founding member. Sam was elected to the Board of Directors in 2011, where he's led the organization’s finances to ensure the success of future programs and initiatives. Additionally, Sam was co-lead of the Marketing and Communications Committee and Internal Productivity Working Group, which deployed the latest tools to help members become more productive.  Currently, Sam contributes to research and helps develop best practices to block bad actors from using internet services. He has more than 25 years of experience in email software development, combating spam, and improving email delivery through industry policy and technical solutions. 

“Threat actors continually look for new ways to attack others via email, SMS, voice, and other forms of internet communications. The work we do at M3AAWG helps gather industry leaders with experts in their respective fields to help the community stay current on the latest threats and how to combat them. I am honored to serve another year as Treasurer to help support this shared cause to keep the internet safer for all.” -- Sam Silberman

Congratulations to all!