Hello folks,

I'm delighted to tell you that the Wikimedia Foundation has a new Chief of Finance and Administration (CFA): Garfield Byrd.

As you know, the Wikimedia Foundation has been searching for a CFA since late February, when Veronique announced she would be leaving us to relocate her family to Texas.

We then set out to find someone with deep expertise in a non-profit context, whose main goal is to support excellence in programmatic activity, and who is sufficiently comfortable with change and ambiguity to flourish in our environment. And for our CFA as with all our roles, we were looking for someone who is passionate about the Wikimedia mission, who has an open-minded and inquisitive personal style, and a strong inclination towards transparency.

Because Veronique gave us lots of notice, we were able to do an unusually thorough search, which was great. Over four months, Lisa Grossman of m|Oppenheim surfaced hundreds of candidates resulting in a mid-list of about 22 excellent people and culminating in in-depth panel interviews with about 10. Garfield I believe fits all our needs, and I expect him to do a terrific job for us.

Garfield comes to us from being CFO at an organization called the New Teacher Center, in Santa Cruz, California. There, he was part of the team that spun the NTC out of the University of California at Santa Cruz, and established it as an independent 501(c)3 with rapidly growing revenues and operations in 50 states and three countries. He was responsible for all accounting and grant-related activities, as well as all administration including information technology, human resources, and product and facilities operations. Prior to that, Garfield was Business Manager and Treasurer for the Jesuit School of Theology, in Berkeley, California, and before that he was Vice President of Finance and Investments and Chief Finance Officer for the Community Foundation Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California. Before that he was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the Pacific School of Religion, in Berkeley, where among other things he project managed the building of a new IT centre, student computer centre and multi-building LAN, as well as the building of a WAN connecting nine schools. Before the Pacific School, Garfield worked for a library cooperative in San Jose, and a medical school in San Francisco. He has a B.S., Business Administration and an MBA, both from John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California. And he has served on a half-dozen boards for arts and education non-profits. All in, he's got 20+ years of non-profit experience.

There are a number of things about Garfield's work experience that suggest he'll be a particularly good fit with us. Managing office IT for a bunch of nerds can be kind of thankless and demanding, so I'm happy Garfield has a fairly extensive tech background. It's great that he has experience starting new things from scratch and supporting growth. I very much like his experience with educational institutions. And Garfield's former CEO describes him to me as someone with enormous personal integrity who lifts the tone of every room he's in – which should make him a lovely addition to our group. I'm really happy he's joining us.

As CFA for the Wikimedia Foundation, Garfield will be responsible for all our financial and accounting functions and for all adminstrative support. Our Controller Tony Le and our interim Head of Office Administration Isa Munne will report to him.

Many thanks as always to Lisa Grossman of m|Oppenheim for leading this important search. My thanks also to everyone who helped us define the CFA role or surface or interview the candidates –- those people include Board treasurer Stu West, Audit Committee members Renata Stasaityte and Ad Huikeshoven, and staff and community members Erik Moeller, Cyn Skyberg, Geoff Brigham, Zack Exley, Tony Le, Barry Newstead, Liam Wyatt, Joseph Seddon and Veronique Kessler. And I want to also, once again, thank Veronique for being such a terrific CFOO during her three years with the organization :-)

Please join me in welcoming Garfield to the Wikimedia Foundation. He doesn't yet have a Wikimedia e-mail address, so you can't actually reach him yet, but he will start work with us August 3.

Thanks, Sue

-- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate