Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I sent out a Wikimedia-l email, but I wanted to share an update on the Chief of Community role, which has been open for some time. I also wanted to share some good news about Maggie Dennis, our interim chief.

***Chief of Community Engagement (CCE) search update** *

There is a lot of movement afoot in the recruitment process for our new CCE. We have finished interviewing the first round of candidates presented to us by Perrett Laver. Of the six candidates we interviewed, four are under consideration. Maggie and I have already spoken with all the candidates, as have Katy Love and Ben Vershbow, representing the Community Engagement department; Eileen Hershenov and Toby Negrin, representing the Foundation leadership team and key department stakeholders, and María Sefidari, representing a Board and community perspective. I’m thrilled to report that we’ve got a great, highly diverse pool of candidates from around the world.

Here is an update on our expectations for the remaining steps:

- November/Decmeber: Final candidates will participate in team interviews on-site and remotely. - Timeline: We hope to have our new CCE in the role at the beginning of the 2019 calendar year.

***Interim CCE, Maggie Dennis, retroactively promoted to CCE***

As most folks know, Maggie Dennis has served as interim CCE for the last two and a half years. As Maggie likes to point out, she's actually been the longest-serving CCE we've ever had, interim or not! She took a rollercoaster ride to get there, going from senior manager to a director to a c-level in one short year.

Maggie assumed leadership of the CE department as a trusted, long-time Wikimedia Foundation colleague and even longer-time Wikipedian. She’s provided deeply appreciated leadership for her department, mentorship for her direct reports, and a cool head for all things community. She’s been a fantastic friend and partner on the Foundation leadership team, and a total joy to work with as we’ve worked on movement strategy and started the search for a new chief.

But two and a half years is a long time to serve as interim! Fun fact, you can gestate an entire baby elephant in that period. True fact.[1] It’s on (En but probably others) Wikipedia. Elephants are amazing[2], and so is Maggie, and her efforts and leadership deserve that recognition. As such, we are retroactively changing her title from Interim Chief of Community Engagement to Chief of Community Engagement. I hope you’ll agree with me that this change in title more accurately reflects her contribution to the Foundation and to the movement.

Maggie will continue to serve as CCE until the recruitment process has concluded. At that point, she’ll transition into her role as Vice President of Support & Services–-with much relief, I suspect.

Please join me in congratulating Maggie! Katherine

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_bush_elephant#Reproduction [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Elephant_selfies#/media/File:Lat...