[Foundation-l] Announcement: New Chief Program Office: Jennifer Riggs

[Lennart Guldbrandsson]

Welcome Jennifer. We look forward to work with you.

/Lennart

2009/4/15 Mike.lifeguard <mikelifeguard at fastmail.fm>

> Welcome, Jennifer!
>
> Congratulations to the hiring committee as well for carrying out a
> successful hiring process. While the Foundation is expanding, I think
> this and other recent hirings show there's no loss of focus on the power
> behind the projects, which is the massive base of volunteer
> contributors, and that enabling them is key to continued success.
>
> Thanks,
> -Mike
>
> On Tue, 2009-04-14 at 19:17 -0700, Sue Gardner wrote:
>
> > Hello folks,
> >
> > I am delighted to announce that this week, Jennifer Riggs begins work
> > as the Wikimedia Foundation's first-ever Chief Program Officer.  She
> > will report to me.  Frank Schulenburg, Jay Walsh and Cary Bass now
> > report to Jennifer: as CPO, she is responsible for all non-technical
> > program activities such as volunteer recruitment and public outreach.
> >
> > As you probably know, we've been searching for a CPO since last fall.
> > Because this is a new and important position for us, we deliberately
> > decided to allow a large pool of candidates to accumulate over several
> > months.  We wanted to build in time to think seriously about our needs
> > while meeting with a wide range of people.
> >
> > Since October, we received applications from more than 150 people with
> > a diverse array of backgrounds including media, academia, the public
> > school system, non-profits, the free software movement and the
> > business world.   As we carried out the interviewing process, the
> > hiring committee came to the understanding that Wikimedia is, at its
> > heart, a volunteer-centred organization -- and that what we need most
> > in a CPO is a rich background in facilitating, structuring and
> > supporting the work of volunteers.  Enter, Jennifer!
> >
> > Jennifer comes to Wikimedia from the American Red Cross Bay Area
> > chapter, where, as Manager of Volunteer Resources, she managed the
> > work of more than a thousand volunteers.  Prior to the Red Cross, she
> > was Project Director at the non-profit California School-Age
> > Consortium, where she ran a program of train-the-trainer workshops.
> > Before that, she worked for six years in program administration at the
> > Peace Corps, as a Country Desk Office on the Central America Desk, a
> > Country Desk Assistant on the Pacific Islands Desk, and a Training and
> > Technical Coordinator in Togo, West Africa.
> >
> > Jennifer speaks French, Sango and some Spanish. She has a B.A. in
> > History with minors in Education and Political Science from New York
> > University.
> >
> > We know that the success of the Wikimedia projects depends upon the
> > 150,000 active volunteers who are our core contributors.  Jennifer's
> > wealth of experience recruiting, motivating and retaining volunteers
> > will be enormously useful to us as we aim to better support the
> > volunteers we currently have, and also reach out to new people.
> >
> > Please join me in warmly welcoming her to the Wikimedia Foundation.
> >
> > I want to take a moment also to thank Erik Moeller, Michael Snow and
> > Kat Walsh for participating on the hiring committee. This was an
> > important decision, and their experiences and advice were really
> > helpful throughout the process.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Sue
> >
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-- 
Lennart Guldbrandsson, chair of Wikimedia Sverige and press contact for
Swedish Wikipedia // ordförande för Wikimedia Sverige och presskontakt för
svenskspråkiga Wikipedia