Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia CH has just hired two new directors
Thank you for the introductions. I appreciate you taking the time to explain
your chapter's thinking behind your hiring in a public venue like this mailing
list.
Many WMF affiliated organizations are expanding so it is helpful to share this
information to encourage discussion about different organizational models.
Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Member Fund Dissemination Committee
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 5, 2013, at 10:18 AM, Frédéric Schütz wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I'm very glad to tell you that Wikimedia CH has just hired two new directors.
> Duc-Ahn Chung will be our new Chief Administrative Officer, starting in
> November, and Charles Andrès, our former president of the board, will be our
> new Chief Science Officer. Read on for more details!
>
> When Chantal Ebongué, our CAO and first employee, told us she was planning to
> leave, we set a recruiting committee to replace her. One of the reasons she
> was leaving was that it was difficult to take care of both administrative
> work and project work -- both because of the high workload, and because these
> two tasks require very different competences. Thus, while drafting the job
> description, the recruiting committee proposed to the board to hire two
> people. This was accepted, and we now have filled these positions.
>
>
> Duc-Anh ("Anh") Chung, our new CAO, originally studied hotel management, and
> worked as project manager in different hotels around the world. She then
> worked as an executive assistant in a start-up company in Geneva, in charge
> of all administrative matters. Since May 2012, she is assistant director in a
> large non-profit organization in Geneva. In this position, she is responsible
> for all administrative matters, and has a wide experience helping a purely
> volunteer organization transform itself into a professional structure.
>
> Among other tasks, Ahn will be in charge of the human resources and the
> finances of our association, including the annual fundraiser and the
> financial side of the FDC application, and will report directly to the board.
> She will start working for Wikimedia CH on 1 November -- just in time for
> the fundraiser :-)
>
>
> Charles Andrès, our new CSO, was originally trained as a biologist; he
> received a Master in Genetics followed by a PhD in Cellular Biology in
> France. Since 2007, he has worked as a senior scientist at the University of
> Neuchâtel, where he is a researcher and lecturer in biology. He is a
> Wikipedian since 2007, board member of Wikimedia CH since 2010 and the
> chairman of the board since June 2012.
>
> Charles will be responsible for all the projects conducted inside our
> association, including both support of individual initiatives (members
> projects) and institutional partnerships, and will be responsible for the
> annual FDC application. Among other projects, he will oversee our GLAM
> activities, as well as the development of our education program. He will
> report directly to the board. Charles has started working part-time as CSO on
> 1 September (just in time for the preparation of the FDC application :-), and
> will join us full time in early October.
>
>
>
> The choice of a Chief Science Officer (CSO) position
>
> The decision to create a CSO position stems from the fact that many of our
> efforts (current and planned) are focused on "scientific" projects; by this
> we mean not only that we have established many collaborations with academic
> institutions, but also that we intend to drive our projects using a
> scientific approach, as a tool to improve quality. We have received very good
> feedback on this from many people in the Wikimedia community.
>
>
> --
> The choice of two directors rather than one executive director
>
> In our current structure and given our level of development, the board still
> takes care of many tasks traditionally in the hands of an executive director.
> The choice of hiring two directors, each with well-defined areas of
> competences, working closely together and with the board, was deemed the best
> solution (note that despite the title of "directors", they will not simply
> delegate the day-to-day work to other employees, but will actually perform
> most of it).
>
> This solution fits well with the Swiss culture, as even the Federal
> government is organized following such a collegial structure
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_%28Switzerland%29 ).
>
> We are also glad to have been able to make a balanced hiring: not only have
> we hired one man and one woman, but we have one director who knows the
> Wikimedia movement very well, and another one who will bring a fresh pair of
> eyes. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find a balance between the
> different languages spoken in Switzerland, as we hired two native French
> speakers,
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia CH has just hired two new directors
Dear all,
I'm very glad to tell you that Wikimedia CH has just hired two new
directors. Duc-Ahn Chung will be our new Chief Administrative Officer,
starting in November, and Charles Andrès, our former president of the
board, will be our new Chief Science Officer. Read on for more details!
When Chantal Ebongué, our CAO and first employee, told us she was
planning to leave, we set a recruiting committee to replace her. One of
the reasons she was leaving was that it was difficult to take care of
both administrative work and project work -- both because of the high
workload, and because these two tasks require very different
competences. Thus, while drafting the job description, the recruiting
committee proposed to the board to hire two people. This was accepted,
and we now have filled these positions.
Duc-Anh ("Anh") Chung, our new CAO, originally studied hotel management,
and worked as project manager in different hotels around the world. She
then worked as an executive assistant in a start-up company in Geneva,
in charge of all administrative matters. Since May 2012, she is
assistant director in a large non-profit organization in Geneva. In this
position, she is responsible for all administrative matters, and has a
wide experience helping a purely volunteer organization transform itself
into a professional structure.
Among other tasks, Ahn will be in charge of the human resources and the
finances of our association, including the annual fundraiser and the
financial side of the FDC application, and will report directly to the
board. She will start working for Wikimedia CH on 1 November -- just in
time for the fundraiser :-)
Charles Andrès, our new CSO, was originally trained as a biologist; he
received a Master in Genetics followed by a PhD in Cellular Biology in
France. Since 2007, he has worked as a senior scientist at the
University of Neuchâtel, where he is a researcher and lecturer in
biology. He is a Wikipedian since 2007, board member of Wikimedia CH
since 2010 and the chairman of the board since June 2012.
Charles will be responsible for all the projects conducted inside our
association, including both support of individual initiatives (members
projects) and institutional partnerships, and will be responsible for
the annual FDC application. Among other projects, he will oversee our
GLAM activities, as well as the development of our education program. He
will report directly to the board. Charles has started working part-time
as CSO on 1 September (just in time for the preparation of the FDC
application :-), and will join us full time in early October.
The choice of a Chief Science Officer (CSO) position
The decision to create a CSO position stems from the fact that many of
our efforts (current and planned) are focused on "scientific" projects;
by this we mean not only that we have established many collaborations
with academic institutions, but also that we intend to drive our
projects using a scientific approach, as a tool to improve quality. We
have received very good feedback on this from many people in the
Wikimedia community.
--
The choice of two directors rather than one executive director
In our current structure and given our level of development, the board
still takes care of many tasks traditionally in the hands of an
executive director. The choice of hiring two directors, each with
well-defined areas of competences, working closely together and with the
board, was deemed the best solution (note that despite the title of
"directors", they will not simply delegate the day-to-day work to other
employees, but will actually perform most of it).
This solution fits well with the Swiss culture, as even the Federal
government is organized following such a collegial structure
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_%28Switzerland%29 ).
We are also glad to have been able to make a balanced hiring: not only
have we hired one man and one woman, but we have one director who knows
the Wikimedia movement very well, and another one who will bring a fresh
pair of eyes. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find a balance
between the different languages spoken in Switzerland, as we hired two
native French speakers, but we have made sure that our staff can cover
adequately the different language communities in the country.
-
Governance and management of potential conflicts of interests
At the time when Chantal left, Charles Andrès had indicated an interest
in a potential position within the Wikimedia movement. As such, he was
not part of the recruiting committee who suggested the creation of a CSO
position and did not participate to the board discussion that approved
this position. He did not participate either to any of the discussions
that to
