After ~ 8 years on the Board of Trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation – a long time! – I have notified the Board that I am stepping down as Chair and trustee, effective end of day today.
As all of you know, the community-selected seats were due to expire last year and were extended at the request of the Board to see through these difficult and unprecedented times. Now, after chairing the last meeting of the fiscal year and having the call for candidates for the upcoming elections approved, it is the least disruptive moment for me to step down. The Foundation has asked me to consider an advisory role to support Movement Strategy and the onboarding of new trustees and the new CEO/ED, to help support leadership and this strategic transition. Nataliia Tymkiv, currently Vice Chair, will act as Chair until a new one is elected by the Board ensuring continuity.
Hopefully, this news will not come as too much of a surprise. I am grateful to the community members who lent me their trust and support to become a trustee on two different occasions, to the staff, and to the trustees for their confidence in me in the different leadership positions I have held within the Board – first as committee chair, then two terms as Vice Chair, and two terms as Chair.
Together we have accomplished many things during this time, but if I had to single out only a few they would be the following: launching the Movement Strategy process, engaging in the most ambitious governance reform in the history of the Board, and working to ensure the stability and sustainability of the Foundation. It has been a time of change, of discussing strategy and our future, and deciding together what the path forward should be.
Of course, the work is never finished – it will be the task of the Board to continue what has been done and face the newer and complex challenges that will no doubt arise. I hope that we will see many of the women of the movement and people from the Global South as candidates in the upcoming community elections – I know there are many qualified people ready to step into these important roles. I look forward to supporting an increasingly capable and diverse Board.
Be safe and well everyone.
Tupananchiskama,
MarĂa
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