Hi Phoebe,

You're right about the overlap -- there isn't a sharp clear line between the two roles, which I may live to regret :-)

But basically, blur is unavoidable in our context. When I worked in an organization that was very large and very stable, the right way to approach hiring was (frankly) to be quite rigid about roles-and-responsibilities. You needed to be, because the organization was so complex, and needed to operate at scale -- so clarity mattered, a lot.

The Wikimedia Foundation, by contrast, is young and growing, and what we require most strongly is intellectual curiosity and flexibility. We know that roles-and-responsibilities will change over time -- they'll have to, we are evolving. And so in that context you want to hire people who are smart and adaptable and comfortable with ambiguity.

So yes, there's quite a bit of blur. But I think both Zack and Barry are game for that, and I think they will each bring real value in quite different ways. And we'll evolve the roles as we go :-)

Thanks, Sue

------Original Message------ From: phoebe ayers Sender: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org ReplyTo: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Announcing new Chief Global DevelopmentOfficer and new Chief Community Officer Sent: 2 Jun 2010 10:40 PM

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org Date: 2 June 2010 19:08 Subject: Announcing new Chief Global Development Officer and new Chief Community Officer To: WikimediaAnnounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Hi folks,

I am really happy to announce two important new Wikimedia Foundation hires.  Zack Exley will be Wikimedia's new Chief Community Officer, and Barry Newstead will be our Chief Global Development Officer.  Both will start just before Wikimania, and will join us in Gdansk.

Congratulations to both Zack and Barry! Exciting indeed. I realize these roles will be formed as they are taken on, but it seems that there is quite a bit of (intentional?) overlap. I am curious how you see that working... both roles seem to involve supporting & growing the communit(ies), perhaps in new ways. There are lots of questions that I have regarding these job descriptions too -- what does supporting the chapters mean? What does supporting the reader community mean? And so on :)

Also as I'm sure you're aware it's definitely time to update http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Org_Chart_Without_Names.png ! (from [[wmf:staff]]

-- Phoebe

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