Colin Wallis – Executive Director
A contributor to Kantara from its inception in 2009, Colin relocated from New Zealand to the UK in 2016 to establish his consulting company with Kantara as its first client, reflecting Kantara’s global membership and the importance of Europe to its assurance program and emergent privacy-enabled suite of specifications and tools.
Colin is a long-time ‘identerati’, respected for contributions drawn from his international standards-setting background and pragmatic operational experience with New Zealand’s digital identity initiative. He contributed his knowledge to Kantara and later at the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG) until it closed and its assets subsequently transitioned to Kantara in 2018. Past efforts include the OASIS technical committees of Security Services, Trust Elevation, Privacy by Design for Software Engineers & Transformational Government; the New Zealand Chapter of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and ISO JTC1 SC27 (as New Zealand’s Head of Delegation) serving in Working Group 5, Identity Management & Privacy.
Colin co-founded the Estonian based Kantara Initiative Europe together with ISOC’s Director of Trust and Identity Robin Wilton, being one of the earliest examples of a non-profit trade association to be incorporated through Estonia’s eResidency program. Early success came in 2018 from Kantara Europe’s consortium partnership with the H2020 grant project NGI_Trust. His love of speed became apparent in his teens as a member of the NZ Ski Team and in later life, as an avid F1 motor racing fan. Colin was named in One World Identity’ s (OWI) 2018 list of the Top 100 Influencers in Identity. You can see more of Colin’s background here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-wallis-7921274/
Ruth Puente – Executive Programme Manager
Ruth has been involved in the Internet Technical Community (ICANN, RIRs and ccTLDs) for more than 10 years. She has contracted to Kantara as Executive Program Manager leading its Identity and Privacy Incubator Research & Development program and its Trust Framework Operations Program since 2014. In 2019 Ruth became a Director of Kantara Europe, overseeing its R&D grant-funding projects and emerging identity & privacy assurance Trust Framework activities.
Her hobbies include spending time at the beach, particularly the Atlantic Ocean, surfing, mountain biking, and she is an avid globetrotter.
Isabella Mendoza – Membership Administrator
Armin Kathrein – IT Web Admin/maintenance.