Maggie, 

You say, María "did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure." 

It seems to me you are paying lip service here to the idea that it's inappropriate for a sitting board member to negotiate transitioning to a lucrative consultant's job, for all the reasons others in this thread have mentioned.

But three weeks ago, when María announced she would be stepping down[1], she already said:

"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."

This is surely the same job you just announced: 

"Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year".

So in fact María did discuss this while still on the board. Perhaps not with you personally, but how is it ethically "quite right" in your mind that she shouldn't have discussed it with you beforehand, but ethically fine for her to have discussed it at length with others?

I guess we are supposed to believe that María expressed no interest whatsoever in such a role, and was entirely surprised and flattered when everybody else came up to her and suggested it. Right? Did she maybe have to be talked into accepting money for the role?

I now understand Dariusz' comment in the same thread three weeks ago, when he said to María[2]:

"This is not a farewell, as I'm confident you will stay in the movement indifferent roles, be they formal (like the one you're transitioning to) or informal, like always".

With the benefit of hindsight, this did sound like a paid role even then. And in fact, Amanda's email just now[3] confirms that this was discussed long before María stepped down.

María, with her wealth of experience, is surely aware that affiliates have been advised to strenuously avoid such conflicts of interest over the years. This is very much a case of "Don't do as I do, do as I say".

Why should anyone stand for that? If María wants to give advice, serve the mission, she can do so as a volunteer, like everyone else.

Amanda, your various explanations as to why a paid role for María is necessary now that she has left the board, and why it's the best use of donors' money, fail to dispel the sense of plain weirdness attached to this.

Andreas



On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 11:01 PM Maggie Dennis <mdennis@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello, all.

I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is not Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure. 

Best regards,
Maggie

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta <trulytito@gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings,
This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition.
"to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation.
But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.

ইতি,
টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta


বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky <philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,

to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.

I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.

All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.

Quite frustrated regards,
Philip


On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis <mdennis@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hello, all. :) 


I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times! 


I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.


María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.


Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.


Warm regards,

Maggie



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Maggie Dennis
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Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
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