After ~ 8 years on the Board of Trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation – a long time! – I have notified the Board that I am stepping down as Chair and trustee, effective end of day today.
As all of you know, the community-selected seats were due to expire last year and were extended at the request of the Board to see through these difficult and unprecedented times. Now, after chairing the last meeting of the fiscal year and having the call for candidates for the upcoming elections approved, it is the least disruptive moment for me to step down. The Foundation has asked me to consider an advisory role to support Movement Strategy and the onboarding of new trustees and the new CEO/ED, to help support leadership and this strategic transition. Nataliia Tymkiv, currently Vice Chair, will act as Chair until a new one is elected by the Board ensuring continuity.
Hopefully, this news will not come as too much of a surprise. I am grateful to the community members who lent me their trust and support to become a trustee on two different occasions, to the staff, and to the trustees for their confidence in me in the different leadership positions I have held within the Board – first as committee chair, then two terms as Vice Chair, and two terms as Chair.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.