Welcome, Katherine.
Communications are a big challenge in Wikimedia as I'm sure you know. We have
information running in many dimensions and directions, we work in multiple languages, and
some information about how we run this place is undocumented tribal knowledge. Welcome to
the tribe.
Pine
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 22:03:05 -0700
From: sgardner(a)wikimedia.org
To: WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
CC: katherine.maher(a)gmail.com
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] Katherine Maher joins the Wikimedia Foundation as Chief
Communications Officer
Hey folks,
I'm pleased to announce we've hired a Chief Communications Officer for the
Wikimedia Foundation, replacing Jay Walsh who left us in October. Our new head of
communications will be Katherine Maher, and she will join us on 14 April, reporting to
me.
Katherine comes to the WMF from Washington DC, where she was Advocacy Director for the
global digital rights organization Access. At Access, she was responsible for all media
and communications work, including communications between the organization and its 350,000
members. She also handled coalition work and advocacy efforts and urgent global threats to
digital rights, participated in the organization's strategic planning, and was deeply
involved with the production of RightsCon.
Before Access, Katherine worked on the launch of the Open Development Technology Alliance
at the World Bank, and was a program manager for internet freedom projects at the National
Democratic Institute. Earlier, she worked on the UniWiki initiative for the UNICEF
Innovation team, intended to improve MediaWiki's usability for people who were new to
computer use, using early-model technology, or connecting in low-bandwidth environments.
Through her career she's been a frequent media spokesperson and writer of op-eds and
other media materials.
Katherine has lived and worked in nine countries and visited many more. She is a native
speaker of English, and has a basic knowledge of French, Arabic and German.
The purpose of the CCO role is to ensure fast, easy information flow about Wikimedia in
multiple languages, both internally within the movement and outside of it, and I think
Katherine will be a wonderful fit for that work. Her experiences advocating for the rights
of ordinary internet users and communicating with a large global volunteer community are
both rare and directly relevant. She's got a solid understanding of internet
technologies. She's a crisp, clear communicator, and an experienced spokesperson.
I want to thank the people who helped with the interviewing process: Geoff Brigham, Jove
Oliver, Gayle Karen Young, David Gerard, Erik Moeller, Lisa Gruwell, Frank Schulenburg,
and Jimmy Wales. A special thanks to Geoff, who's ably overseen our communications
functions for the past several years, and to Jay, who's generously filled in when it
took us longer than we expected to hire for this role. Geoff and Jay will be helping
Katherine get on-boarded, and I know she'll benefit enormously from their guidance and
support.
Please join me in welcoming Katherine, who's on CC.
Thanks,
Sue
--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to
Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information
about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l