Paul Rendek is the Director of External Relations for the RIPE NCC. He is responsible for developing and maintaining the RIPE NCC's public relations activities and for the organisation's external communications. He also oversees outreach activities, such as RIPE Meetings, Regional Meetings and Roundtable Meetings, for the RIPE NCC members, the RIPE community, governments, law enforcement and regulators. Together with the RIPE NCC's Senior Management Team, Paul also helps to develop the organisational strategies to ensure that the RIPE NCC continues to meet the membership's needs.
Paul was one of the founders of the Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG), and as part of the MENOG Coordination Team, he helped to establish the group's ongoing success by coordinating its first meeting, MENOG 1, held in Bahrain in April 2007. He is still actively involved with MENOG.
Drawing on the experience he gained with MENOG, Paul was one of the founders of the Eurasia Network Operators Group (ENOG) in 2011. Now firmly established as the leading meeting of its kind in the region, Paul continues to work tirelessly to draw together operators in Russia and Central Asia for this twice-yearly meeting.
Paul is currently based in Dubai, allowing him to focus attention on the Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East regions. His main concern is the needs of RIPE NCC members in these regions, and he works to involve those members in public/private cooperation activities with government and law enforcement authorities.
In 2012, Paul was appointed to serve as a member of the Internet Governance Forum Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF MAG) to give the RIR perspective on Internet governance. Paul was later appointed to the Arab IGF MAG to provide similar advice and support on Internet governance issues in the Middle East region.
Paul was the driving force on the RIPE NCC delegation that led the technical community through the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). He was also instrumental in driving the creation and formalisation of the Internet Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC) in the OECD.
Paul is a strongly active figure in the RIPE community, as seen through his work in helping to establish the RIPE Cooperation Working Group, which brings together representatives of government and the Internet community to discuss technical issues that are important to all stakeholders.
As a long-time employee of the RIPE NCC, Paul has held several positions in the organisation. Previous to his employment at the RIPE NCC, his time at EUnet, the first pan-European commercial Internet service provider in Europe, and the Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA) have ensured that he has been a well-known face in the Internet industry since 1993.