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/>