Hi all, I’m happy to let you know that the Foundation has concluded our search for a Chief Product Officer (CPO). Our own Toby Negrin will transition from acting as interim lead of the Audiences department to this permanent and updated role. Please join me in congratulating Toby!
Toby was unanimously recommended by our CPO search panel, following an executive search process very similar to those used for recent executive appointments in Legal and Talent & Culture. We kicked off the process by developing a job description based on feedback from staff, particularly from the Audiences department. This job description attracted hundreds of applicants after being posted in August 2017. A pool of approximately 30 candidates was reviewed by the primary hiring panel, made up of stakeholders from Audiences and Technology. We conducted additional interviews with six candidates, and two external finalists were interviewed by the full panel and myself. Since joining the Foundation in 2013, Toby has demonstrated leadership focussed on outcomes, collaboration with the Wikimedia community, and respect for Wikimedia values. He led an expansion of our analytics efforts, built a new team focused on Readers, and championed the development of intuitive mobile interfaces and mobile applications. Toby played a critical role in the creation of the Community Tech team, and supporting the creation of the New Readers program. He has a deep interest in partnership with the communities, an instinct for assembling and cultivating teams, and a record of supporting staff as they develop and explore new skills and roles. Leading our product development efforts takes more than a commitment to the Wikimedia mission. As the world around us changes, we too must evaluate how we best make progress toward our mission. Changes in demographics, language, connectivity, interfaces, and more will have a profound and transformative effect on our projects and how we seek to achieve our vision. To respond effectively, we will need to develop a vision and plan for how the Wikimedia projects will evolve, growing users, expanding services, and improving retention and participation. And perhaps more importantly, we will need to develop a culture of excellence, service, and sustainability across the organization, so that we can retain and attract a diverse crow of exceptional colleagues. I’m excited to see how Toby and the department will continue to take on these challenges and opportunities. Toby brings nearly 20 years of experience if integrating data, research, and design to produce effective and popular products. Prior to joining the Foundation, he led analytics efforts at DeNA, a mobile social games company. At DeNA, he partnered with colleagues in Japan and China to build global dashboards used to track gaming performance around the world. He also held roles at Yahoo! related to cloud platforms, anti-abuse efforts, and content moderation. Toby grew up in Los Angeles and the UK before landing in the San Francisco Bay Area, and worked in software development at startups in Sweden and The Netherlands. Toby graduated from the NIMBAS Graduate School of Management and University of California - Santa Cruz. He was a board member and treasurer of the Golden Gate Philharmonic youth orchestra. In his free time, he enjoys spending time winemaking and grape growing, running, hiking Bay Area trails, and playing tennis. I want to offer my sincere thanks to the CPO hiring committee for your work on this process: Jon Katz, Nirzar Pangarkar, Adam Baso, Grace Gellerman, Anne Gomez, James Forrester, Victoria Coleman, and Ryan Kaldari. A special thank you to Liz Verlade, Joady Lohr, and Anna Stillwell for their amazing work coordinating the process. Finally, thank you to Eileen Hershenov, Maggie Dennis, Megan Hernandez, Pau Giner, Danny Horn, Runa Bhattacharjee, and Christophe Henner for their input throughout the process. Again, and especially for those at WikidataCon this week, please join me in congratulating Toby on this appointment! Cheers, Katherine -- Katherine Maher Executive Director *We moved! **Our new address:* Wikimedia Foundation 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600 San Francisco, CA 94104 +1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635 +1 (415) 712 4873 kma...@wikimedia.org https://annual.wikimedia.org -- Katherine Maher Executive Director *We moved! **Our new address:* Wikimedia Foundation 1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600 San Francisco, CA 94104 +1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635 +1 (415) 712 4873 kma...@wikimedia.org https://annual.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
