Hello dear all,
one of the most memorable moment in my work together with Sue was one evening in October 2011. As some of you may remember that the years 2010 to 2012 were especially difficult years in relationship between the Foundation and the chapters. The Foundation experimented a few approaches and changed again and again its direction. And the discussion about how to distribute the funds raised on our projects had repeatedly kindled, sometimes very violent confrontations. On one of the board meetings earlier of 2011 Sue said to the board that she never considered this confrontation as a question of who wins. She wanted a good and sound solution for the problems that are out there. After the Haifa Wikimania the discussion became even hotter and sometimes it really felt insulting. I always considered myself as a person who is very ballanced and who can keep his tempel, but at that point I must say that I was very unnerved by the dispute. We had our board meeting in San Francisco and after that Sue asked me to stay for a few days to give a speech on the All Hands Meeting of the staff. So one evening we went out for a dinner together and naturally, the discussion came back to the fund raising and fund dissemination topic. And I asked Sue with a sigh:"Do you still think that it is not about who wins?" And she said:"Yes, of cause not." At that moment I felt a trimendous respect for this woman, and I must confess that I felt also a bit ashamed for myself because I was on the edge to lost my ballance.
For me Sue is one of the most respectable person I know, not only because of her achievements and her work, but especially because of her attitude.
Greetings Ting
Am 01.06.2014 21:26, schrieb Jan-Bart de Vreede:
Hello Everyone,
As Lila officially takes over from Sue as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation after this weekend it really is a moment to not only wish Lila a lot of succes in the coming years, but also to give a tremendous thanks to Sue for her work in the past years. Of course I did so last year in March when she announced her departure but it bears repeating that Sue took us from a small organisation in St. Petersburg Florida, which was struggling to create impact, to a mature and stable organisation which makes a huge difference. Building up a professional staff who are dedicated to our mission, incredible fundraising growth and working through complex situations to create concepts such as the FDC stand out amongst many other achievements.
It was Sue herself who indicated that it was time to find a new Executive Director, someone who was more suitable for our focus on Engineering and Grantmaking. As I mentioned more than a year ago, its hard to imagine the Wikimedia Foundation without Sue at the helm. However, due in large part to her efforts we have managed to find a new Executive Director who gives me confidence in the future of the Foundation. I am happy that we managed to find the “unicorn” that we were looking for, but that didn’t happen by accident. Most of you know that we concluded the first round of our search in early december with candidates that we did not feel were ideal for the job. We decided to change our tactics and this involved both Erik and Sue spending a lot of their (spare) time with potential candidates and making sure that we were getting the right candidates. As a result our second round had a great set of candidates, which ultimately led to the selection of Lila. On the transition team Sue has been very crucial in holding up a mirror and reminding us what we were looking for.
After a well deserved vacation Sue will be available as a Special Advisor to both the Lila and the Board of Trustees and we are grateful to her for making herself available to do this. However, what intrigues me more is what she will end up doing in the coming years. I am hoping it is in the space of Open Content or the Open Internet, as she will undoubtedly have a tremendous impact in there, and we need her! I am also happy to inform you that Sue will attend a part of Wikimania where she will for once not have an packed schedule, so feel free to take the opportunity to thank her in person if you are so inclined :)
On behalf of the entire Board and all the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation: thank you so much all that you have given the Foundation, and especially your efforts in the past year to ensure that there was both stability within our organisation and a great succesor.
Jan-Bart de Vreede Chair Wikimedia Board of Trustees _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe