Wikimedia announces two new executive roles
Earlier today we announced two important new Chief Executive roles at the Wikimedia Foundation – our new Chief Community Officer (CCO) Zack Exley and our new Chief Global Development Officer (CGDO) Barry Newstead.
These are two brand new roles for the Wikimedia Foundation. The CCO will oversee and lead the development of our relationships with key stakeholders of the Foundation and our global projects: donors, readers, and volunteer editor/contributors. The CGDO’s work will focus on leading the Foundation projects’ reach and growth globally, but with a particular focus on the Global South, a key goal of the Foundation’s upcoming five-year business plan.
We’re thrilled to welcome Barry and Zack to the Foundation – two highly experienced leaders and advocates who bring new capacity and energy to our movement.
Jay Walsh, Communications
From the press release:
As CGDO, Barry Newstead will be responsible for increasing readership and supporting editor self-organization in the Global South, for overseeing communications with the general public and the media, and activities aimed at supporting and developing chapters.
Newstead joins the Foundation from The Bridgespan Group, where he spent the past year helping the Wikimedia Foundation develop its five-year strategic plan. Previously, he worked with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for eight years and in 2004 he joined the Bridgespan Group, the nonprofit consulting organization created in partnership with Bain & Company. While at BCG, Newstead worked extensively in southeast Asia, greater China, South Korea and western Europe. At Bridgespan, he led work in education innovation and social technology, which mainly consisted of working with CEOs on strategy development, organizational development and leadership issues.
Newstead 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. Barry has been married to P. K. Lee for 12 years.
“It is an honor to be joining the Wikimedia Foundation,” offered Newstead. “The Wikimedia movement has achieved unbelievable feats to date and I am excited to work with the community to help realize Wikimedia’s vision: to reach every single human being.”
“I am thrilled that Barry’s agreed to join us,” said Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “His extensive international experience and his background in organizational development will be hugely valuable as Wikimedia shifts its attention towards the Global South, and towards accelerating development of our international network of chapters.”
and for Zack Exley:
As Chief Community Officer, Zack Exley will be responsible for developing the Wikimedia Foundation’s relationships with key constituencies including readers, editors and donors.
“Zack will be a terrific addition to the Wikimedia Foundation,” said Gardner. “He’s spent his whole career helping people self-organize to achieve their goals, and he has a track record of helping mission-driven organizations run effective online fundraising campaigns. It’s a very rare mix of skills, and I’m delighted we found him.”
Exley brings to Wikimedia a wealth of experience in serving communities of online volunteers. He joins Wikimedia from the Chicago-based firm Thoughtworks where, as principal consultant, he oversaw strategy and technology projects for organizations like Obama For America, Rock the Vote, and Global Zero. Prior to that he served in senior campaign leadership roles with the UK Labor Party, John Kerry 2004, and MoveOn.org. With the Washington DC-based communications firm OMP, he has worked as a strategist and advisor helping many of the largest mission-driven organizations in the U.S. advance their fundraising and volunteer mobilization goals. He has also worked as a labor organizer and software developer.
Exley grew up in Connecticut and has also lived in Kenya, China and the United Kingdom. He has a BA in Economics from the University of Massachusetts.
“Wikimedia is the most incredible thing on the Internet: hundreds of thousands of individuals working collaboratively to produce a resource on which a significant portion of humanity relies — overseen by an emergent, organic, voluntary community and funded by readers and editors,” said Exley. “It’s amazing and I’m ecstatic about this opportunity to be involved.”
[[Press_releases/June_2010_Wikimedia_Foundation_appoints_new_CCO_and_CGDO_QandA |Questions and Answers]] on this press release.
I’m not really clear on the difference between the roles of each of these but they seem like great people to have on our side and I’m glad to have them.
I especially like that the contribution of editors is being recognised alongside that of donors even if editors contributions are harder to quantify in a balance sheet.
I hope the donations side of the balance sheet finds some way to mention the benefit received by our readers too.
What a terrible waste of donors’ money. In this economically difficult times the Foundation should be CUTTING its staff to get by, and come back to earth to stick to its basic objectives of supporting the servers and keeping Wikipedia online. Any “surplus” should be held in a sinking fund to prepare for days when donation is low.
Instead the Foundation is adding an increasing number of managerial positions, even after the financial crisis begun. They are being paid an undisclosed salary and is going to put further strain on the Foundation’s finances. When revenues are down (or in danger of falling), public and private bodies around the world cut managers to reduce costs, yet the Foundation is doing the exact opposite. Isn’t it an unwise thing to do? It is precisely this increasing headcount that demands the Foundation to raise the annual fund raising target year after year. So far, targets set by the Foundation are lucky to have been met with donors’ generosity. But goodwill is not sustainable. The Foundation (along with the projects hosted by it) will face dire consequences if the revenue (i.e. donations) falls but its workforce swells.
I have been donating year after year to the Foundation’s annual fund raising, but unless the Foundation realizes this grave financial irresponsibility and start to correct it, I see the foundation no longer spending on necessities but squandering my goodwill on luxuries. I will no longer donate to the Foundation as I believe it is not worthy of my support.
But of course, the truth is, the foundation no longer needs the support (i.e. donations) of ordinary people like us! They can now depend totally on the funding of Google! No wonder Jimbo is already piloting in [[Censorship_by_Google]]…
Spitze Design hat dieser Blog. Woher hast du die Vorlage ? War bestimmt sehr teuer.
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