The largest and most relevant portfolio of top-level domains (TLDs) currently in existence is managed by Identity Digital under the leadership of Akram J. Atallah. The company provides people and businesses with the most authentic and pertinent domain names to represent their digital identities. Their purpose is to motivate individuals and organizations to own their uncompromised digital identities. Descriptive TLDs give domain name owners the freedom to use both sides of the dot to convey their brand’s uniqueness from the very first impression. Identity Digital (previously Donuts) has been in business since 2010. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, with offices in Colorado, California, Ireland, India, Australia, and Canada, they also provide best-in-class backend registry services for hundreds of other registry operators and help them bring their domain names to consumers globally.
Logical, Methodical & Strategist: Qualities of a Leader:
Akram shares, “I had a passion and aptitude for high tech at a young age. That is why I studied computer engineering and started as a hard disk drive systems engineer developing some chips along the way. But I soon realized that even the best product doesn’t work unless it addresses a market need. Since those decisions are made on the business side, I decided to get my MBA, allowing me to make a greater impact in these matters. After my MBA, I took product marketing roles with semiconductor companies.” Eventually, Akram moved into management at various tech companies. These leadership positions allowed him to play a key role in developing comprehensive and well-thought-out strategies, leading to the success of established companies as well as start-ups. As he shares, “I came to product/business management roles with a background in engineering. As such, I was used to tackling problems with logical thinking, analyzing and dissecting in detail how best to execute and test solutions. But that was definitely not the right approach in management. Here, you have to manage multiple functions simultaneously and be able to make quick decisions. That was a real challenge for me at first.”
Before joining Identity Digital as CEO, Akram served as the first president of the Global Domains Division at ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He generated 90% of ICANN’s revenue by expanding business activities, which he created from the ground up. His appointment as CEO of Identity Digital was a logical next step. Under his leadership, Identity Digital has become a well-recognized domain provider. Akram most recently led a rebranding process changing Donuts to Identity Digital to better match its image and aspirations of evolving the future of authentic digital identities for forward-thinking individuals and enterprises worldwide. The new name reflects the dedication to helping customers find, access, and grow their digital identities. His leadership focuses on continuing to support that purpose in the coming years.
Identity Digital: Helping Businesses Achieve Success
With the world’s largest portfolio of nearly 300 TLDs, such as .live, .technology, and .restaurant, Identity Digital customers have many descriptive domain name options that are relevant, memorable, and SEO-friendly—positively impacting business growth. The company operates around 25 million domains on its innovative registry services platform and is the only provider to include free advanced anti-phishing technology with its domain registration service. The technology automatically prevents bad actors from misappropriating a customer’s brand, business, and identity through homographic phishing.
As Akram shares, “Identity Digital helps clients gain digital growth with concise, well-thought-out domain name options that use both sides of the dot. They are easy to remember and highlight what is unique about a start-up or small business from a customer’s very first impression. Examples of successful domain names using both sides of the dot include vacation.rentals, and elicit.wine. These descriptive domain names are highly impactful in terms of SEO, memorability, and click-through potential, helping our clients rank higher in search results and be more relevant to a wider variety of searches by leveraging specific keywords and phrases.”
Identity Digital is very environmentally mindful. They are developing an initiative around the TLD, “.green,” discussing new ideas and how they can best contribute to sustainability. They provide paid volunteer hours, and a percentage of these hours go to such efforts. The company also creates a sense of family with a company culture in which every voice counts. Akram strives for a workplace where employees have a happy and flexible work-life balance. This makes for more dedicated and productive employees who feel appreciated.