Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
Erik Moeller wrote: On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: Many organizations have dozens or hundreds of vice presidents, like Vice President of Vending Machines and Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners. Heh. I've certainly been in the VP of Odds and Ends role before. :) A little bit of context. As Stu and Kaldari mentioned, the VP title is fairly common in the US, where it's actually often situated below the C-level in the org. The reason Sue and I agreed on the title VP of Engineering/Product for the engineering department has more to do with the organizational vocabulary in this part of the world, where that title does carry a very specific meaning relative to the CTO title. You can read more about the differences in these posts: http://wp.me/PDnCk-DZ http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engineering.html http://falseprecision.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engin.html Thanks for the insight here. :-) Much appreciated. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
Really strange because the title of president and that of vice-president belong to the board. Do you know that the board should not have any conflict of interests and should do the benefit of the overall foundation? If the titles of President or Vice-President is in charge of an executive person, there is a conflict of interests. Ilario On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:20 AM, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote: That's kind of an American thing I think. Many organizations here have Vice Presidents, but instead of having a President have someone with the title CEO or Executive Director instead. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
On 1 February 2012 11:59, Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com wrote: Really strange because the title of president and that of vice-president belong to the board. The title President is sometimes used by the chair of the board, but Vice President is usually an executive, non-board, position. Large banks, for instance, often have hundreds of VPs - it's a middle-manager rank. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
I have the same problem when I've translated Erik mail about the new Android app for WMFr members list. Because in France, a Vice President is member of board in most of foundations or charities, and almost always it's a volunteer position. So to avoid confusion, I have translated as Directeur exécutif adjoint, en charge de l'ingénierie et du développement des nouveaux produits, means Deputy Executive Director in charge of engineering and new products development Thierry 2012/2/1 Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com Really strange because the title of president and that of vice-president belong to the board. Do you know that the board should not have any conflict of interests and should do the benefit of the overall foundation? If the titles of President or Vice-President is in charge of an executive person, there is a conflict of interests. Ilario On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:20 AM, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote: That's kind of an American thing I think. Many organizations here have Vice Presidents, but instead of having a President have someone with the title CEO or Executive Director instead. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Thierry Coudray Administrateur - Trésorier Wikimédia France http://www.wikimedia.fr/ Mob. 06.82.85.84.40 http://blog.wikimedia.fr/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
I am speaking about a company environment. In my company (Swiss based) the CEO has dismissed his role and now it's VP because he is in the board. This role has the aim to moderate the board's meeting when the President is not present or to sign contracts instead of the President. Ilario On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 February 2012 11:59, Ilario Valdelli valde...@gmail.com wrote: Really strange because the title of president and that of vice-president belong to the board. The title President is sometimes used by the chair of the board, but Vice President is usually an executive, non-board, position. Large banks, for instance, often have hundreds of VPs - it's a middle-manager rank. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
Not surprisingly, the executive and board positions of the WMF follow U.S. convention. It's not super typical to mix the executive director nomenclature with president / vice president, but its common to have vice presidents reporting to a chief executive (who will often take the title of President CEO.). As for conflicting names with Board titles... In the U.S., its far more common for boards to have a Chairman (or Chairwoman) and a Vice-Chair, than president or vice-president (which connote operating roles). Personally, it would be easier for me to understand the org chart of the WMF if they picked a particular nomenclature and stuck with it. For years they've been mixing systems - CTO and executive director, vice president and a proliferation of Heads of this and that (a highly uncommon executive title in the U.S., as far as I can tell), directors of some things and chiefs of other things... It's a bit strange. On a side-note, it's interesting to see that Erik has been moved out of the executive section of the staff list and into engineering.[1] [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Staff_and_contractorsdiff=nextoldid=78885 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
Many organizations have dozens or hundreds of vice presidents, like Vice President of Vending Machines and Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners. It's not really analogous to President and Vice President of the U.S. for example, which are exclusive positions. Of course I agree that job titles are kind of silly, but whatever. Ryan Kaldari On 1/31/12 8:17 PM, MZMcBride wrote: Hi. Erik took on the temporary title VP of Engineering and Product Development after Danese left.[1] Just recently it was codified on wmfwiki.[2] I don't really think much of job titles anywhere, but it seems strange to have a Vice President without having a President.[3] Mostly just noting for posterity. MZMcBride [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2011-June/054040.html [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?diff=78986oldid=78985 [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
Someday, I can only aspire to be a Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners :) Sidenote: indeed, on our board we use the terminology Chair Vice-Chair, not president. cheers, phoebe On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: Many organizations have dozens or hundreds of vice presidents, like Vice President of Vending Machines and Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners. It's not really analogous to President and Vice President of the U.S. for example, which are exclusive positions. Of course I agree that job titles are kind of silly, but whatever. Ryan Kaldari On 1/31/12 8:17 PM, MZMcBride wrote: Hi. Erik took on the temporary title VP of Engineering and Product Development after Danese left.[1] Just recently it was codified on wmfwiki.[2] I don't really think much of job titles anywhere, but it seems strange to have a Vice President without having a President.[3] Mostly just noting for posterity. MZMcBride [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2011-June/054040.html [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?diff=78986oldid=78985 [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: Many organizations have dozens or hundreds of vice presidents, like Vice President of Vending Machines and Vice President of Pencil Sharpeners. Heh. I've certainly been in the VP of Odds and Ends role before. :) A little bit of context. As Stu and Kaldari mentioned, the VP title is fairly common in the US, where it's actually often situated below the C-level in the org. The reason Sue and I agreed on the title VP of Engineering/Product for the engineering department has more to do with the organizational vocabulary in this part of the world, where that title does carry a very specific meaning relative to the CTO title. You can read more about the differences in these posts: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/want-to-know-difference-between-a-cto-and-a-vp-of-engineering/ http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engineering.html http://falseprecision.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engin.html Right now, we don't have a CTO, but we do have three Lead Architects in the engineering department (Mark, Brion, and Tim). We may choose to ultimately create a CTO role again, but it would probably be different from the way we've treated that role in the past (as architectural lead/visionary and process/delivery manager combined into one person). We may also need to split the product/engineering responsibilities if scale requires it. -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Vice President?
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 6:20 AM, Stuart West stuw...@gmail.com wrote: That's kind of an American thing I think. Many organizations here have Vice Presidents, but instead of having a President have someone with the title CEO or Executive Director instead. On Jan 31, 2012, at 8:17 PM, MZMcBride wrote: Hi. Erik took on the temporary title VP of Engineering and Product Development after Danese left.[1] Just recently it was codified on wmfwiki.[2] I don't really think much of job titles anywhere, but it seems strange to have a Vice President without having a President.[3] Mostly just noting for posterity. MZMcBride [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2011-June/054040.html [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?diff=78986oldid=78985 [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors The problem you have, there, is thinking president is a title in some historical inalienable sense. It isn't. Grammatically it can still be used in the plain sense as denoting he who presides. -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
