[Foundation-l] Fwd: Announcing new Chief Global Development Officer and new Chief Community Officer

Thu Jun 3 14:15:02 UTC 2010

More Canadians to the staff?! I tought we already talk about that!!!

Good luck :)

Itzik Edri | T: +972.54.5878078 | itzik at infra.co.il |
   Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/itzike>|
Twitter<http://www.twitter.com/itzike>
| Flickr <http://www.flickr.com/itzike> |
Linkedin<http://il.linkedin.com/in/itzikedri%20>

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 5:23 AM, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> Forwarding from the announce list, since it does not yet auto-forward :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org>
> Date: 2 June 2010 19:08
> Subject: Announcing new Chief Global Development Officer and new Chief
> Community Officer
> To: WikimediaAnnounce-l at 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.
>
> There will be a press release going out tomorrow, but the news isn't
> confidential: please feel free to tell whoever you like.
>
> Zack Exley will be our new Chief Community Officer.  Zack joins
> Wikimedia from the Chicago-based firm Thoughtworks where he oversaw
> strategy and technology projects for organizations like Obama For
> America, Rock the Vote, and Global Zero.
>
> Zack has a long history of mobilizing people and facilitating them
> reaching their goals.  During the nineties, he worked as a labour
> organizer and software developer.  In 2002, he joined MoveOn.org as
> director of organizing, where he ran mobilization and fundraising
> campaigns – and in the same period, helped the Howard Dean campaign
> with its online fundraising.  Zack left MoveOn.org to become online
> communications and organizing director for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards U.S.
> presidential campaign, where he ran the team that raised $125 million
> online for Kerry, and also oversaw online-to-offline organizing
> efforts responsible for mobilizing hundreds of thousands of field
> volunteers.  In 2005, he led internet strategy and online fundraising
> for the UK Labour Party's 2005 election campaign, and since 2005 he
> has acted as a senior strategist and advisor helping many
> mission-driven organizations advance their fundraising and
> mobilization goals, including the American Civil Liberties Union,
> Amnesty International, the National Association for the Advancement of
> Colored People (NAACP), the International Rescue Committee and
> Greenpeace USA.
>
> Zack grew up in Connecticut and has also lived in Kenya, China and the
> United Kingdom. He has an BA in Economics from the University of
> Massachusetts.
>
> As Chief Community Officer, Zack will be responsible for developing
> the Wikimedia Foundation's relationships with key constituencies
> including readers, editors and donors.  This will include our work
> aimed at recruiting new editors (including the public policy project)
> and supporting community health, as well as fundraising. The people
> who will report to Zack are Philippe, Cary, Frank, Rand, Rebecca and
> Sara, plus their direct reports.
>
> Zack currently lives in Kansas City: he'll be relocating to the Bay
> Area in July.
>
> Barry Newstead will be our Chief Global Development Officer.  Some of
> you know Barry from Buenos Aires or Berlin, where he attended
> Wikimania and the chapters meeting, respectively.  He comes to us from
> the strategy consultancy firm The Bridgespan Group, where he has spent
> the past year leading the Bridgespan team supporting Wikimedia with
> its strategic planning process.  For the past six years, Barry has led
> Bridgespan's work in education innovation and social technology, which
> mainly consisted of working with CEOs on strategy development,
> organizational development and leadership issues.  Prior to joining
> Bridgespan, he spent eight years at The Boston Consulting Group, where
> he worked with global clients in the financial services, media and
> energy sectors on global strategy, organizational restructuring,
> change management and post-merger integration.
>
> Barry was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and raised in Toronto,
> Canada.  He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Western
> Ontario, and a master's degree in public policy from the John F.
> Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
>
> In this new role with us, Barry will be our Chief Global Development
> Officer (CGDO), the position formerly known as the Chief (Global)
> Programs Officer.  As CGDO, Barry will be responsible for our
> activities focused specifically on increasing readership and
> supporting editor self-organization in the Global South, for our
> messaging to the general public and the media, and for our activities
> aimed at supporting and developing chapters. The people who will
> report to him are Jay and his direct report Moka, plus Kul, plus a
> number of new hires dedicated to supporting new activities that have
> come out of the strategic plan.  You'll hear more about that in coming
> months, once Barry has joined us.
>
> We are really lucky that Barry got engaged in our work, and is willing
> to now join us.  His extensive background in organizational
> development particularly will be useful to us, as we all collectively
> further evolve our thinking about how to structure Wikimedia as an
> international movement. He'll also be terrific with the global
> development work due to his extensive international background.  And,
> his background as a consultant has trained him to be a great listener
> and facilitator, which is important in our work.
>
> I want to take a minute to offer my thanks to everyone who helped with
> the process of bringing in both Zack and Barry, which has been ongoing
> for many months.  Dozens of people –including board members, advisory
> board members, editors, friends and supporters-- helped us source
> candidates for these roles.  Our board members spoke at length with
> the recruiting firm m|Oppenheim, gave me good feedback on potential
> candidates, and helped with the interviewing.  Several staff
> participating in the interviewing as well, including Erik, Veronique,
> Daniel, Rebecca, Rand, Sara and Jay.
>
> And of course, a big thanks to m|Oppenheim.  In recruiting for these
> roles, m|Oppenheim spoke with hundreds of people over a period of
> about six months, to develop a midlist of 65 candidates, of whom eight
> reached a “final interview” stage.  m|Oppenheim did really great work
> and I'm very pleased with this outcome.
>
> This completes the C-level hiring, with the exception of the Chief
> Human Resources Officer, which we're in the middle of recruiting for.
> That's is currently underway with m|Oppenheim, with support from our
> friends at Omidyar Network.  I expect we'll be able to announce the
> new CHRO within six weeks or so.
>
> Before closing – I wanted to talk a little about how these roles have
> evolved through the hiring process.  Originally, as you may remember,
> we had set out to hire a Chief Program Officer and a Chief Development
> Officer – however, during the hiring process, those roles morphed into
> a Chief Global Development Officer and a Chief Community Officer.
> It's not unusual for that kind of thing to happen: it's normal for
> thinking to evolve, and it's normal for roles to be customized a
> little to suit people's particular skills and experiences.  But I did
> want to call out one particular aspect of my thinking that might be
> interesting for people here on this list.
>
> Setting out to hire a Chief Development Officer is a “normal” thing
> for a non-profit organization to do: in most non-profits, fundraising
> is structured as a distinct department, separate from the rest of the
> work of the organization.  As we went through the hiring process
> though, it became increasingly obvious to me that that conventional
> structure doesn't really suit us.  Most non-profits provide special
> access and privileges to donors, and pay them special attention,
> because they are the fuel that powers the organization.  Donors are of
> course our fuel too, and we're deeply grateful for their help.  But
> --unusually in the world of non-profits-- we have an additional group
> of supporters without whom the work couldn't be done --- which is you:
> the volunteers who build and maintain the projects.  And our readers
> are another special group, in part because we hope to persuade them to
> join us as editors and donors.
>
> Given the importance of all three groups to our work, I believe it
> doesn't make sense for us to treat donors as distinct: rather, we
> should invite them into our larger community, and treat them as a part
> of that greater whole.  This means, among other things, speaking with
> donors in the same tone and style, and with the same substance and the
> same type of information, as we speak with readers and editors.
> During the hiring process, Zack pointed out to me that the CDO job as
> then-structured didn't support that vision.  He argued that by siloing
> off donors into a separate department, we were making it more
> difficult to achieve the level of authenticity I wanted.  That was an
> important observation, and I took it seriously.  I believe that
> restructuring the CDO job to create a department that includes all our
> key relationships is an unusual thing to do, and it's arguably a bit
> risky.  But I think it's the right structure for us, given who we are,
> and the unique nature of our work.
>
> I'd be happy to talk further about Zack and Barry, and I'm sure they
> –and other staff-- would be too.  This is an important moment for
> Wikimedia: please join me in welcoming them officially to our world.
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
>
>
> --
> Sue Gardner
> Executive Director
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> 415 839 6885 office
>
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>