Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/June 2024 Meeting Outcomes

This update is included in the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin issue from 01 August 2024. Subscribe here

Outcomes from the June Meeting for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Dear all,

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees met on June 20 virtually, focusing on the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual plan and 2024-2025 budget, which the Board unanimously approved. Like in previous years, this year’s plan remains anchored in the 2030 strategic direction, and builds on movement strategy recommendations. There will be more details about the annual plan, budget and progress made in Maryana’s message later this week.

As part of regular housekeeping, the Board approved the consent agenda, which included the March meeting minutes. Operational and committee updates were shared with the Board prior to the meeting itself as a pre-read and did not require Board action; you can see the board committee reports here. The Board’s first scheduled meeting after the 2024 Board selection process results are final will not be until December 2024, so a short term extension was approved for Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, Victoria Doronina, Lorenzo Losa and Dariusz Jemielniak.

The Board also renewed Jimmy Wales’ appointment. Jimmy has a special seat on the Board, called the Founder’s Seat, which requires reappointment every three years. The Board also reappointed Luis Bitencourt-Emilio to his second term on the Board. Luis brings product development and technology engineering expertise, and serves as a member of the Product and Technology Committee and an alternate on the Audit and the Talent and Culture Committees.

As part of an ongoing process to review its own committees and structures, the Board discussed a recommendation to sunset the Talent and Culture Committee as a separate standing committee of the Board, and transfer its responsibilities to the Audit and Executive Committees. The Talent and Culture Committee met in April and reviewed its self-assessment committee survey responses, which every Board committee performs on an annual basis. The committee discussed that its structure no longer meets the needs of the Board, so the decision to dissolve and reorganise its responsibilities in a more meaningful way would be more in line with the Movement Strategy 2030’s Recommendation #10, “Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt”. This decision is based on the fact that it is the whole Board’s responsibility to evaluate the CEO, and over the course of the past few years many of the “T&C/People” type issues have been embedded in processes that are now visible to the full board (e.g., leadership bench/succession planning processes, compensation principles as part of the annual planning process, etc.). Based on this discussion, and following the committees' conversation, the updated committee charters and relevant resolutions will be a part of the August Board meeting.

After the meeting Board members joined a conversation with Wikimedia Foundation staff to update staff on the Board meeting and answer questions. The outcomes from the Board meeting were briefly shared at the June 27 "Conversation with the Trustees" session.

The next regular meeting of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will be in Katowice, Poland on August 5, 2024. The upcoming Board meeting agenda is here. There will also be an open session with the Wikimedia Foundation Board during Wikimania to answer questions on these topics or others you may have. We hope to see some of you either virtually or in-person at Wikimania.

Best regards,

antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv

Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees