OpenID Foundation Leadership

Executive Director
Gail Hodges

Non Executive Director
Don Thibeau
Don Thibeau serves on the Board of the OpenID Foundation, a non-profit, standards development organization committed to international interoperable technical standards. He was OIDF’s Executive Director for 10 years. As founder of the Open Identity Exchange, he led OIX for 10 years and now serves as its Vice Chair. Open Identity Exchange is a a non profit organization developing scheme rules, trust frameworks and governance for identity systems at scale. Early in his career, Don led business development and strategy at the LexisNexis Group and the Reed Elsevier Venture Fund. As a serial entrepreneur and investor he now advises on venture firms in the internet identity industry.

Non Executive Director
Michael Jones
Michael B. Jones is on a quest to build the Internet’s missing identity layer.
He is an editor of the OpenID Connect specifications, IETF OAuth specifications, including JSON Web Token (JWT) and DPoP, the IETF JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE) specifications, FIDO 2.0, and W3C Web Authentication. Michael has been recognized as Distinguished Engineer by OpenID Foundation for creating simple, secure, ubiquitous, interoperable digital identity solutions since 2005. As a long-time member of the OpenID Board of Directors, he architected the award-winning and globally adopted OpenID Certification program. He chairs the IETF COSE working group. Michael’s Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University led to a lifelong career in digital identity, computer security, privacy, and networking. He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of identity leaders. He blogs at https://self-issued.info/ and tweets at @selfissued.

Counsel
Tom Smedinghoff
He is internationally recognized for his work in developing digital legal policy both in the U.S. and internationally, most notably regarding e-commerce and identity management. As a member of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), he helped to negotiate the 2022 UNCITRAL Model Law on the Use and Cross Border Recognition of Identity Management and Trust Services, the 2005 United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, and the 2001 UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures. A longstanding leader in the American Bar Association (ABA), Tom founded and chairs its Identity Management Legal Task Force (in the ABA Business Law Section) and previously served as Co-Chair of the ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force and Chair of the ABA Science & Technology Law Section. Tom has authored and co-authored numerous books and articles on e-commerce, identity management, privacy, and cybersecurity topics, including serving as editor and lead contributing author of the first book on Internet law titled ONLINE LAW: THE LEGAL GUIDE TO DOING BUSINESS ON THE INTERNET (Addison Wesley, 1996).

Program Manager
Mike Leszcz

Distinguished Engineer
Mark Haine
Mark Haine is an engineer and entrepreneur who has focussed his career on building solutions that enable business and mitigate risk in financial services.
Through Considrd.Consulting Ltd. Mark and his team are providing strategic security consultancy to a range of clients. He has also taken on a leadership role in the OpenID Foundation as Co-Chair of the eKYC & Identity Assurance Working Group and co-author of OpenID Connect for Identity Assurance. Mark also contributes to other communities including the W3C and OpenAPI, serves as a board member of the Open Identity Exchange and is board advisor to two technology startups.
Mark was close to developments in Open Banking and has been directly involved in Open Banking UK as senior security architect, member of the standards team, and identity product owner. He has also helped a number of other organisations navigate the complexities of opening up access to their data and services via APIs. Mark holds a B.Eng. from the University of Southampton in Electronic Engineering. Mark’s goal is to help organisations succeed by influencing projects in a ways that improve outcomes for people.
Certification Team

Marcus Almgren

Domingos Creado

Joseph Heenan

Edmund Jay

Alan Smillie
Alan Smillie is a software developer at Emobix, a software consultancy in Europe with a focus on mobile. He has more than 30 years experience in many areas ranging from embedded systems to mobile application development.