Board of Directors Candidacy - Robert McQueen
Name: Robert McQueen E-Mail: ra...@gnome.org Corporate Affiliation: Endless OS Foundation RocketChat, IRC, Twitter, Telegram, Signal, etc: ramcq Dear Foundation members, In line with my stated belief that consistent board and leadership are beneficial for the Foundation's ability to set, refine and execute strategies over longer periods of time, I would like to announce my intention to stand again and offer to serve as a director of the GNOME Foundation. I am now the CEO of the newly-formed Endless OS Foundation, which is already adding a lot more in-depth non-profit experience to my previous technical and executive work in and around GNOME and the free desktop space. I have 15 years of experience working on the successful adoption of free and open source software in commercial products, working with partners on the best ways to build successful products while contributing effectively to the community. As with previous years, I believe I have been able to use this experience to support both the board and the ED when evaluating and making decisions and evaluating financial and legal implications. This year I teamed up with Allan and split the President role from the Chairperson role, and with him serving as Vice President I believe we made an effective partnership between these roles, focusing within the board and allowing the ED to be the more prominent external face of the Foundation. I continue to be involved behind the scenes in Flathub and helped the Board to draft and agree the joint agreement with KDE to co- host the Libre App Summit. During the budget setting process this year I was able to step in and work closely with Carlos (Treasurer), Allan (Vice President) and Neil (Executive Director) to come up with a better presentation of the proposed budget to make it clear to the board what was being asked, and set out a more realistic forecast that let the directors have more confidence to proceed with their decision-making. I worked as a thought partner on the process to define the "GNOME Circle" initiative and discussions to move the board into a strategic/oversight role. Allan joined me to assist as the line manager for the Executive Director, and we've established a consistent feedback and communication process to make sure the board and Executive Director have remained in sync, or quickly escalated and discussed concerns in either direction. Should I be re-elected my intention is very much to continue in the same vein - as well as discharging the legal duties of a director in terms of fiscal responsibility and non-profit compliance - to build clearer statements of the Foundation's current mission, ensure that the strategy and resources are aligned behind those goals and communicated well, and provide support, insights and different perspectives to the board and ED so that we make the best decisions possible. I would like GNOME to work with its distribution partners and application developers to grow our collective user base, support the growth of the Linux desktop and deliver a trusted, independent and free personal computer to as many people as possible. Thanks for your consideration! Kind Regards, Rob ___ foundation-announce mailing list foundation-announce@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-announce
Board of Directors Candidacy - Robert McQueen
Name: Robert McQueen E-Mail: ra...@gnome.org Corporate affiliation: Endless IRC, Twitter, Telegram, Signal, etc: ramcq Dear Foundation members, I would like to announce my intention to stand for re-election for a second term as a director of the GNOME Foundation, not least because I believe the Foundation will benefit from the stability of longer- serving Board members and longer Board terms, and that my participation over the past year has been a net positive. :) I am currently the Chief of Engineering at Endless, and we are building new channels and markets to bring our GNOME-based desktop OS in front of more users, and provide accesss to technology to empower people. I have been using and contributing to GNOME in a personal and professional capacity for almost 15 years, most recently contributing to Flatpak and helping to found and build the Flathub app store and address technical barriers to attracting app developers to the free desktop. Professionally, I have served as a founder, company director or executive for that entire period, building products based around GNOME and the free desktop technology stack, and I am pleased have the opportunity to bring this commercial experience, and familiarity with the industry, legal and financial issues, into helping the GNOME Foundation grow as a more effective and impactful organisation. In the process of deciding to stand again I sought informal feedback from fellow board members, and the general opinion was that my advice and experience in the board meetings has been appreciated, although I encourage you to ask them for their thoughts yourselves. In my previous term on the Board I have served as the line manager for the Executive Director, including setting the priorities for Neil and his team to drive for the strategy that the Board outlined at the start of the year. As with other board members I am trying to craft the Board into a more regular advisory (and, barring optional additional participation, less time-consuming!) role and have the Foundation use its current resources and staff effectively to raise more funds and launch more ambitious programs. I also drafted and implemented the charter for the Compensation Committee to independently vet the ED's salary, to improve the tax/legal compliance of the Foundation as increased donations may subject us to increased scrutiny. I participated in that compensation committee (although most credit is due to Carlos and Nuritzi) and partnered with Allan and Carlos to refine thinking around defining what is GNOME software and how that interacts with use of trademarks and other resources. Given the opportunity to serve the Foundation again on the Board of Directors, I will continue striving for GNOME to become a more impactful, widely-used and widely-deployed desktop in order to preserve end-user freedom, and seek to remove roadblocks to the successful commercial adoption of the desktop and our technologies at scale. Many Thanks, Rob___ foundation-announce mailing list foundation-announce@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-announce
