Thank you for the introductions. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your chapter's thinking behind your hiring in a public venue like this mailing list.
Many WMF affiliated organizations are expanding so it is helpful to share this information to encourage discussion about different organizational models.
Sydney Poore User:FloNight
Member Fund Dissemination Committee
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 5, 2013, at 10:18 AM, Frédéric Schütz schutz@mathgen.ch wrote:
Dear all,
I'm very glad to tell you that Wikimedia CH has just hired two new directors. Duc-Ahn Chung will be our new Chief Administrative Officer, starting in November, and Charles Andrès, our former president of the board, will be our new Chief Science Officer. Read on for more details!
When Chantal Ebongué, our CAO and first employee, told us she was planning to leave, we set a recruiting committee to replace her. One of the reasons she was leaving was that it was difficult to take care of both administrative work and project work -- both because of the high workload, and because these two tasks require very different competences. Thus, while drafting the job description, the recruiting committee proposed to the board to hire two people. This was accepted, and we now have filled these positions.
Duc-Anh ("Anh") Chung, our new CAO, originally studied hotel management, and worked as project manager in different hotels around the world. She then worked as an executive assistant in a start-up company in Geneva, in charge of all administrative matters. Since May 2012, she is assistant director in a large non-profit organization in Geneva. In this position, she is responsible for all administrative matters, and has a wide experience helping a purely volunteer organization transform itself into a professional structure.
Among other tasks, Ahn will be in charge of the human resources and the finances of our association, including the annual fundraiser and the financial side of the FDC application, and will report directly to the board. She will start working for Wikimedia CH on 1 November -- just in time for the fundraiser :-)
Charles Andrès, our new CSO, was originally trained as a biologist; he received a Master in Genetics followed by a PhD in Cellular Biology in France. Since 2007, he has worked as a senior scientist at the University of Neuchâtel, where he is a researcher and lecturer in biology. He is a Wikipedian since 2007, board member of Wikimedia CH since 2010 and the chairman of the board since June 2012.
Charles will be responsible for all the projects conducted inside our association, including both support of individual initiatives (members projects) and institutional partnerships, and will be responsible for the annual FDC application. Among other projects, he will oversee our GLAM activities, as well as the development of our education program. He will report directly to the board. Charles has started working part-time as CSO on 1 September (just in time for the preparation of the FDC application :-), and will join us full time in early October.
The choice of a Chief Science Officer (CSO) position
The decision to create a CSO position stems from the fact that many of our efforts (current and planned) are focused on "scientific" projects; by this we mean not only that we have established many collaborations with academic institutions, but also that we intend to drive our projects using a scientific approach, as a tool to improve quality. We have received very good feedback on this from many people in the Wikimedia community.
The choice of two directors rather than one executive director
In our current structure and given our level of development, the board still takes care of many tasks traditionally in the hands of an executive director. The choice of hiring two directors, each with well-defined areas of competences, working closely together and with the board, was deemed the best solution (note that despite the title of "directors", they will not simply delegate the day-to-day work to other employees, but will actually perform most of it).
This solution fits well with the Swiss culture, as even the Federal government is organized following such a collegial structure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_%28Switzerland%29 ).
We are also glad to have been able to make a balanced hiring: not only have we hired one man and one woman, but we have one director who knows the Wikimedia movement very well, and another one who will bring a fresh pair of eyes. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find a balance between the different languages spoken in Switzerland, as we hired two native French speakers, but we have made sure that our staff can cover adequately the different language communities in the country.
Governance and management of potential conflicts of interests
At the time when Chantal left, Charles Andrès had indicated an interest in a potential position within the Wikimedia movement. As such, he was not part of the recruiting committee who suggested the creation of a CSO position and did not participate to the board discussion that approved this position. He did not participate either to any of the discussions that took place afterwards during the hiring process for both positions, until the final choice made by the rest of the board, and resigned immediately after being told he was chosen. During the process, we received the advice of Dominique Freymond, a widely-recognized Swiss expert in governance (http://www.mas-ltd.ch/index.php?page=97), who helped us eliminate possible conflicts of interests. In particular, it was determined that our president did not have to resign during the selection process.
The main people taking part in the recruiting committee were Chantal Ebongué, Ilario Valdelli and Frédéric Schütz, who followed the entire process. Several other people from the board, the staff, our members and external people were involved at one step or another, commenting on the process or the applications and participating to the interviews.
Board transition
The board has chosen current board member Patrick Kenel as president of the board ad interim, and Frédéric Schütz as vice-president ad interim. The current priority goes to the upcoming FDC application and the annual fundraiser; the organization of these activities does not depend on the transition, and so will not be affected in any way.
The next general assembly is planned on 22 March 2014, and a new president will be elected at that time.
Before finishing this long email, I would like to thank Chantal Ebongué again for the huge work she did while working with us, and for her collaboration within the hiring committee.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!
Frédéric Board member of Wikimedia CH, in the name of the core of the recruiting committee: Chantal Ebongué, Ilario Valdelli and Frédéric Schütz
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