Jane Coffin

Jane Coffin is a seasoned executive and internet community expert who has been working at the centre of connectivity and infrastructure development, policy and regulatory strategy and international development for over 30 years. She has worked in the non-profit sector, for the US government, and in the private sector. She joined Connect Humanity in January 2022 and worked with the team as its Chief Community Officer during its first full start-up year. Jane recently shifted gears to become a part-time Senior Advisor/Senior Fellow to work on Connect Humanity’s global expansion, stakeholder strategy, and finding ways to help new networks, particularly community networks, municipal networks and ISPs levelling up, to understand traditional financial models and find the best adapted model for sustainable network development.

Prior to joining Connect Humanity, Jane spent 10 years at the Internet Society (ISOC) leading internet infrastructure development and community development teams. She focused on community networks, internet exchange points (IXPs), peering and interconnection, new funding mechanisms to support infrastructure development, health of the internet data collection and platform development, policy/regulatory change to support connecting the unconnected, partnership development, grant making and fundraising. She has worked with the ITU, OECD, UNCTAD, UNESCAP, UNESCO, Giga, CITEL, ATU, APT and other global, regional and local connectivity and development organisations. While at the Internet Society, she brought in over USD 4 million in grants for internet infrastructure development. Jane has managed staff, built programmes, developed strategic and tactical plans, advised senior government officials, CEOs and other executives and regional experts, taken part in numerous UN negotiations, and worked in/with experts from over 60 countries.

Before joining the Internet Society, Jane worked for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Office of International Affairs (NTIA OIA) where she co-chaired the Federal IPv6 Task Force to encourage deployment of IPv6 in US government agency networks, working closely with industry experts, ICANN, IETF, ISOC, ARIN, AFRINIC, LACNIC, APNIC and RIPE NCC on IP addressing issues. Prior to working for the NTIA OIA, she spent five years on USAID projects in Armenia (Deputy Chief of Party, BearingPoint – now Deloitte) and Moldova (Chief of Party, BearingPoint – now Deloitte) working on telecommunications infrastructure, and regulatory, policy and WTO/trade issues. Before her work in the field, she was a Director at AT&T, worked for the NTIA OIA on international development and trade issues, and worked for Steptoe & Johnson’s international practice.