Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for your dedication and service to this
organization, the Wikimedia movement, and the broader Big Open.
Since meeting you at Wikimania London in 2014 I've known you as an
unflagging advocate for the power of community, and the importance of
working hand-in-hand with our movement to confront our thorniest
challenges. In 2017, you came to Wikimedia Summit in Berlin, while still
CEO of Creative Commons, and gave the movement strategy equivalent of
former US President John F. Kennedy's moonshot speech [1] -- something to
the effect of, "we do strategy as a radically open process, not because it
is easy, but because it is hard -- and it is by going through what is hard
that we get to what is great." (Also, that the process of making choices in
strategy can make us sad, which we’ve all certainly experienced!)
I knew then that you would have a role to play inside the Wikimedia
movement, and was thrilled in 2019 when you joined us as Chief of Staff. In
that role, I asked you to take on leading the movement strategy
recommendation process through to completion and working with the movement
to build an implementation plan; and getting developing a response to the
challenge of disinformation to our projects, putting together a team and a
plan for how we would tackle this work as a united movement. You did both,
and I couldn't be more grateful.
Along the way, you ensured that the Movement Strategy work was defined by a
culture of inclusion, creativity, and exploration. You created space for
participants and organizers alike to experiment, with empathy for the
occasional inevitable setbacks. We had moments of joy and celebration, and
moments of frustration, but no matter what, people continued to come to the
table with shared commitment, respect, and understanding that participation
in this process matters in a meaningful way to the future of the movement.
I am hopeful that this successful approach you pioneered continues to
inform Foundation and community alike as the movement begins the work of
implementation.
Most of all, I'm grateful for your commitment to our values. You are
leaving unflagging in your belief that our movement can live into its
ideals of inclusivity and shared power, that our movement governance can be
more representative and effective, and that the Foundation can continue to
put our stakeholders at the center of all of our work in ways that
cultivate trust and care. You were an excellent advisor on the strategic
ecosystem issues faced by our open movement and the broader commons, a
champion of patient, kind, and inclusive community building, and a friend
to many around the movement.
You've led Creative Commons, been COO at Mozilla, and Chief of Staff at
Wikimedia, which must be the triple crown of the Big Open. (And perhaps a
legitimate reason to retire!) But I know a movement person when I see one,
and like so many of us, I know you're not going far. You're interwoven into
our work and the Big Open, which will continue to benefit from your insight
and support. I'm grateful for the great work we got to do, especially on
movement strategy, which still offers so much richness and potential.
I'm so glad you took the gamble and joined us these past two years. I'm so
excited for your next move, and I hope others will join me in thanking Ryan
for his commitment to what movement leadership can be. I look forward to a
future Wikimania when we can reminisce while searching for that elusive
decent coffee!
Katherine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon
On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 11:21 AM Ryan Merkley <rmerkley(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Dear colleagues,
With the transition well underway for the Foundation’s Chief Executive
Officer, it is time for me to begin my own transition from the
organization. I shared with our executive team earlier this month that I
will be departing on 1 April 2021.
There is never a perfect time to leave an organization. It’s difficult to
step away from this important work, and a community of colleagues,
collaborators, and friends that I admire and appreciate. However, after
successfully delivering two major strategic projects on behalf of the
Foundation, notably the final movement strategy recommendations and
coordinating the Foundation’s programme to combat disinformation, and with
Katherine's departure as our CEO — the timing feels right. I want to afford
the next chief executive the opportunity to select a chief of staff who has
as close a working dynamic as Katherine and I have shared.
Many of you know me from our work together in the free and open movement
over many years — we’ve discussed the future of the web over a good coffee
at MozFest, debated copyright reform and license terms at CC Summits, or
worked to reshape our global movements in Berlin, Stockholm, Esino Lario,
Tunis, and online. Over the past decade, it’s been a real joy to have so
many conversations about the future we want to build together, and then to
actually go out and work on it. The Wikimedia communities are at the center
of the world’s most powerful collective act, and it’s been thrilling to be
a part of it with you.
For me, this most recent role in our open community was an opportunity to
make a lasting impact on the future of free knowledge. It has been a
tremendous honor to get to know our communities more deeply through the
movement strategy process, and support this work to develop the strategy
towards tangible actions that are now being implemented across our
movement. It was exactly a year ago today that a small group of us met in
New York City to finalize the draft recommendations, and today there are
concrete commitments and an incredible momentum towards a new model of
distributed, community-led governance that I know will reshape the movement
forever. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have done this work with
our movement, and for the collaboration and friendships that developed
along the way.
I’m also proud of our work together to combat disinformation. Wikimedians
have been fighting disinformation together for 20 years — it’s a core value
and approach. But this year brought unprecedented threats, and as always,
communities stepped up to lead. At the Foundation, we came together with
community members to make sure we had a coordinated approach to defend the
projects against disinformation around COVID-19 and the US elections last
fall. The experience of the disinformation taskforce taught us several
valuable lessons that are informing how we understand and prepare for
threats to the quality of knowledge on our projects.
This is a movement built on the promise of radical collaboration. What I
will miss most are the people that I have had the privilege to work with
during my time here. I’m not certain what is next for me, but I have some
conversations in the works and hope to have more to say soon. I will
continue to be a part of this Big Open movement, and look forward to seeing
you again — online or (fingers crossed) in person.
With gratitude,
Ryan
Ryan Merkley (he/him)
Chief of Staff and Board Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
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Katherine Maher (she/her)
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Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>