Claudia Garád
Claudia Garád
Claudia Garád
Executive Director, Wikimedia Österreich


The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.

--Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

If you ask me what is my native country, I answer: I was born in Fiume, grew up in Belgrade, Budapest, Pressburg [Bratislava], Vienna and Munich, and I have a Hungarian passport, but I have no fatherland. I am a very typical mix of old Austria–Hungary: at once Magyar, Croatian, German and Czech; my country is Hungary; my mother tongue is German.

--Ödön von Horváth

About me

Due to my professional background in communication science I am passionate about communication management and it's multifacetedness - especially about strategies to promote free knowledge and educational content. In my pre-Wikimedia life I used to work as Head of Marketing and Communications for a major German science institute.

Having grown up between Germany, Austria, and Hungary, I especially enjoy the multi-cultural aspects of working for the Wikimedia movement. I also love travelling, podcasts, barbells, cheese, Tetris, and exploring Vienna's rich cultural life.

For my private, not job related work on the Wikimedia projects I use the handle Ki7sun3

My work

Centrepiece of Wikimedia Österreich's self-conception and strategy is to sustain motivated and active Wikimedia communities as a reliable service provider. My job is to support this by developing suitable strategies and tools for program / project planning as well as mutual learning based on trust and sound communication structures.

Within the wider movement I like to support activities and networks regarding diversity and inclusion, cuteness, capacity building, and organisational development.

Contact me

  • e-mail:
    claudia.garad@wikimedia.at

You can talk to me in English and German. And French if you talk really, really slowly ;)