The DONA Foundation is a non-profit organization established in Geneva, Switzerland.

DONA Board of Directors

Our Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is the governing body of the Foundation. The original Board of Directors and initial Chair of the Board were designated as the Constitutive Assembly of the Foundation on January 20, 2014 and serve in their personal capacities.

DONA Foundation Leadership Transition

At its meeting in July 2025, the DONA Board unanimously elected Dr. Robert Kahn (Bob) as Chair Emeritus. This marked the end of an extraordinary chapter in the Foundation's history. As the founding Chair and the principal inventor of the Digital Object Architecture (DOA), Bob has been the visionary force behind the DOA and everything the DONA Foundation has created. It is difficult to overstate his contributions or imagine the DONA Foundation without his steady leadership.

After thoughtful discussions, on July 4th 2025, the board unanimously approved a transition plan that honors Bob's legacy while positioning the Foundation for the future. Bob assumed the newly created role of Chair Emeritus, with a permanent seat on the Board. Ed Pentz was elected to serve as Chair, and Xihui Zhen was elected to the newly created Vice-Chair position. The board strongly felt that maintaining Bob's ongoing involvement through the Chair Emeritus role was not just beneficial but essential to represent the Foundation on the world’s stage.

Having the roles of Chair Emeritus, Chair, and Vice Chair ensures stability and institutional resilience for the Foundation.

The organisation's updated by-laws specifying the new roles of Chair Emeritus and Vice Chair were approved by the Board at its July 2025 meeting.

The current Board and Chair and their affiliations are listed below.


Dr. Robert E. Kahn
Dr. Robert E. Kahn
Director and Chair Emeritus
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
Reston, Virginia, USA
Robert E. Kahn is Chairman, CEO and President of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), which he founded in 1986 after a thirteen year term at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). CNRI was created as a not-for-profit organization to provide leadership and funding for research and development of information infrastructure.
Mr. Ed Pentz
Mr. Ed Pentz
Director and Chair
Crossref
Oxford, United Kingdom
Ed Pentz became Crossref's first Executive Director when the organization was founded in 2000 and he manages all aspects of the organization to ensure that it fulfills its mission to make scholarly content easy to find, link, cite and assess. Ed is also on the ORCID board of directors and Treasurer of the International DOI Foundation. Ed has a degree in English Literature from Princeton University and lives in Oxford, England.
Mr. Xihui Zhen
Mr. Xihui Zhen
Director and Vice Chair
Content Digital Innovation Technology Co.，Ltd.
Beijing, China
Mr. Xihui Zhen is the CEO of Content Digital Innovation Technology (CDI), a software development company he founded in 2002. CDI is a member of the Coalition of Handle Services – China, the DONA Foundation’s Multi Primary Administrator (MPA) located in China. The Coalition of Handle Services – China was the first accredited MPA from the DONA Foundation. CDI primarily focusses on developing DOA based application solutions for all industries, creating DOA application tools to help others develop their own DOA based applications, as well as conducting DOA based research to help better apply the DOA technology.
Mr. Stefan Eberhard
Mr. Stefan Eberhard
Director and Secretary
Oberson Abels SA
Geneva, Switzerland
Stefan Eberhard is a partner of the law firm OBERSON ABELS. He advises on Swiss business law with a particular focus on M&A, corporate and contract law. He also advises foundations and associations, in particular those involved in the sphere of the international organizations active in Geneva. A particular strength of OBERSON ABELS is its strong focus on tax.
Mr. Jonathan Clark
Mr. Jonathan Clark
Director
DOI Foundation
Jonathan Clark is the Managing Agent for the DOI Foundation which is a not-for-profit membership organisation that manages the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) System and is the registration authority for the ISO standard (ISO 26324). The DOI system provides a technical and social infrastructure for the registration and use of persistent interoperable identifiers.
Dr. Antoine Geissbuhler
Dr. Antoine Geissbuhler
Director
Division of eHealth and Telemedicine, Geneva University Hospitals
Geneva, Switzerland
Antoine Geissbuhler is a Professor of Medicine, Vice-Dean for Humanitarian and International Affairs at Geneva University’s Faculty of Medicine, Director of the Division of eHealth and Telemedicine at Geneva University Hospitals. He is also President of the Board of the Health-On-the-Net Foundation, Past-President of the International Medical Informatics Association, and Fellow of the American College of Medical Informaticians.
Mr. Rashid Ismailov
Mr. Rashid Ismailov
Director
Former Deputy Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation
Moskva, Russia
Mr. Rashid Ismailov is the Former Deputy Minister of Russia's Ministry of Communications. In this position, Mr. Ismailov oversaw the development of the IT industry while continuing to be involved with international cooperation. Prior to that, Mr. Ismailov was responsible for the development of international relations in the field of Communications, the expansion of relations with foreign partners and the strengthening of Russia’s image as one of the leaders on the global market for information and communication technologies.
Mr. Andy Maltz
Mr. Andy Maltz
Director
General Intelligence
Atascadero, California
Mr. Maltz has over 4 decades of experience instigating, developing, and deploying technologies in the media and entertainment industry. He currently serves as chair of ISO/TC 36 Cinematography, the motion picture industry’s international technical standards body, and leads a consultancy specializing in technology strategy, standardization, and cross-industry collaboration.
Mr. Majed Al Mazyad
Mr. Majed Al Mazyad
Director
International Telecommunication Union
Geneva, Switzerland
Majed Al Mazyad has a hands on experience in the field of ICT spanning for more than 16 years. He is an experienced executive who has demonstrated technical and leadership skills at both the national and international levels. He has actively contributed in the development of important policies and regulations that helped shaping the telecom market in the Kingdom, boosting competition, and maintaining a good mix of market and regulatory involvement.
Dr. Beth Plale
Dr. Beth Plale
Director
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Beth Plale is a visionary leader with more than 25 years of experience shaping the future of computer and data sciences. As Executive Director of the School of Computer and Data Sciences at the University of Oregon, she is driving a bold agenda at the intersection of technology, ethics, and interdisciplinary discovery and building the next generation of academic innovation.
Dr. Ulrich Schwardmann
Dr. Ulrich Schwardmann
Senior Advisor
Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH (GWDG)
Göttingen, Germany
Ulrich Schwardmann was one of the founders of the ePIC Persistent Identifier Consortium for eResearch in 2014 and was chair of the ePIC Management Board until 2020. Ulrich has been involved in several RDA working groups since its foundation, and was involved in topics and outcomes directly related to the Digital Object Architecture. He was responsible for the Quality of Service strategy of ePIC and currently he is working as senior advisor enforcing the standardization and use of PID Information Types and profiles.
Dr. Peter Wittenburg
Dr. Peter Wittenburg
Director
RDA Europe
Dr. Peter Wittenberg brings over fifty years of expertise in development and implementation of large research and data infrastructures. He was responsible for the implementation of large research/data infrastructures such as DOBES, CLARIN and EUDAT. He is the co-founder of the Research Data Alliance and director of RDA Europe, and co-founder of the FAIR Digital Object Forum.
Dr. Stephen Wolff
Dr. Stephen Wolff
Director
Internet2
Washington, DC, USA
Stephen Wolff brings over forty years of leadership in the development, management, and operations of network technologies and is regarded as one of the original visionaries and architects behind the Internet of today, including leading the development of NSFNET, a key precursor to the commodity Internet. Wolff's experience includes teaching and research in communication theory and networking, and development of ARPANET technology including the transition to TCP/IP.
Mr. Gao Xinmin
Mr. Gao Xinmin
Director
Internet Society of China
Beijing, China
Mr. Gao Xinmin is the Vice President of Internet Society of China, member of the Advisory Committee for the State Informatization, P. R. China and  member of Consultative Committee on UN Information Technology (CCIT)，China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). He graduated with a Master degree from the Department of Electrical Machinery of the Polytechnic Institute of Kalinin, Leningrad in the former Soviet Union.

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