Dear all,
I am writing with an update on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
Audit Committee Chair search process.
You may recall that in July 2023, I wrote about the Board’s need to
identify a replacement for trustee and Audit Committee chair Tanya Capuano
[1] and the requirements that the Board had identified for the position
[2]. The Governance Committee conducted a search over a months-long
process, which included a search firm as well as a call for candidates
through the communities; the main components of the recruitment process are
described here [3]. In August at Wikimania, the Governance Committee made a
recommendation to the Board to move forward with the top finalist, and the
Board accepted it [4]. I am pleased to announce that Kathy Collins [5] will
be joining officially at our next Board meeting on December 6, 2023.
Kathy has extensive financial and nonprofit governance experience that she
brings to this role. She has worked as a financial expert for her entire
career, across both higher education institutions and state and federal
governments in the United States. She was Vice President of Finance at Rice
University in Houston, Texas for nearly 20 years, a position she held until
last year when she retired. She has also been a trustee at Mount Holyoke
College in Massachusetts, where she served in multiple Board leadership
roles including Vice Chair of the Board, Chair of the Finance Committee and
member of the Audit, Governance and Development Committees and the DEI
(Diversity,
equity, and inclusion) Task Force. Her experience and expertise are very
relevant to the challenges we as the Board are seeing for this role.
Please join me in welcoming her!
This is a planned role succession, with a very clear profile needed, and as
I mentioned before [4], over the past year, there have been quite a lot of
intentional improvements to all of our processes (e.g., recruitment,
appointments, onboarding, succession planning), so that Trustees with no or
limited Wikimedia experience can start engaging in community conferences,
events, and on-wiki discussions as soon as possible, and as the role of a
Trustee is complex, it is better if the process can start before the
official appointment, when already a certain level of knowledge is expected
to start making informed decisions. And Kathy has wasted no time in
pre-onboarding to the Wikimedia Foundation and learning about the Movement
and Board. She has been joining the Audit and Governance Committee meetings
for the past few months. Kathy also will also be joining other Trustees in
person at the WikiConference North America event in Toronto, which will be
her first community event, and also an opportunity to get to know some of
her future colleagues on the Board better.
I would like to thank Tanya Capuano for continuing to support the
Foundation while Kathy is pre-onboarded to the Audit Committee and the
Board. Tanya has also graciously agreed to remain an Advisor to the Audit
Committee after her term officially ends in December.
Recently, Maryana Iskander announced Talking: 2024 [6], conversations to
share, listen, and learn with intention as we all continue to plan our
future as a movement. If you would like to talk to me about this or any
other Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees topics, you can use the Let’s
Talk feature to sign up for a time to speak with me [7].
[1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Governance_Committee/B…
[3]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees/Recruiting_procedure
[4]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
[5]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/11/01/wikimedia-foundation-welcom…
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…
Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!*