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The Wikimedia board and staff

The Wikimedia Foundation’s policies are set by a five-member Board of Trustees, according to the Foundation’s charter. Day-to-day operations are handled by the Executive Director. The Foundation employs software developers to write and maintain the MediaWiki code used on its projects, and system administrators to maintain the hardware infrastructure.

The Board of Trustees

Florence Nibart-Devouard

Chair of the Board of Trustees

Florence Nibart-Devouard is the vice-chair of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees, re-elected by the Wikimedia community in July 2005. Florence was born in Versailles, France, and lived in several French cities, as well as Antwerp in Belgium and Tempe in Arizona. She is an engineer in Agronomy (ENSAIA) and also holds a DEA in Genetics and biotechnologies (INPL). She joined the Wikipedia adventure in February 2002 and is known under the pseudonym “Anthere”. Florence is 37, and lives in Clermont-Ferrand with her husband Bertrand and her three children.

Jan-Bart de Vreede

Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees Jan-Bart de Vreede is the Vice-chair of Wikimedia Foundation since January 14, 2007. Jan-Bart joined Wikimedia Board in December 2006. Working at the Kennisnet Ict op School Foundation allowed Jan-Bart to spend time on promoting the use of wiki software and Wikimedia projects in education, amongst other things. The Kennisnet Foundation is a publicly funded Dutch organisation. Within this organisation he is responsible for the educational portals and some content creation tools. Through his work at Kennisnet Ict op School, he has been involved with Wikimedia since 2004.

Jimbo Wales

Chairman Emeritus

Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales is the founder of Wikipedia and the chairman of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, and is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of Alabama. He worked as Research Director at Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trading firm then located in Chicago. In 1999, Wales had the concept of a freely distributable encyclopedia, and founded a project called Nupedia. This endeavor failed primarily due to being a top-down “cathedral” model, as opposed to Wikipedia, which is the ultimate “bazaar”. After more than two years of struggle with the Nupedia concept, Wikipedia was opened up to all and became an instant success. Wales lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with his wife and daughter.

Michael Davis

Treasurer of the Board of Trustees

Michael Davis is the treasurer of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Formerly the CEO of Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trading firm in Chicago, Michael is Chief Operating Officer of community-focused wiki hosting service Wikia, and lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of Chicago.

Erik Möller

Member of the Board of Trustees

Erik Möller is an elected member of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He has been an active editor of Wikipedia since 2001 and has also contributed to the underlying software, MediaWiki. Erik is a freelance journalist and author and also manages wiki-related software development projects. Beyond Wikimedia, he seeks to promote Free Content, Free Software, and balanced intellectual monopoly rights legislation.

Kat Walsh

Kat Walsh is a Wikimedian from Herndon, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC. She is currently studying technology and intellectual property law at George Mason University School of Law.

Oscar Van Dillen

Oscar is an editor and bureaucrat for the Dutch-language Wikipedia and other Dutch Wikimedia projects. He also holds the role of steward since May 2005, helping and advising many projects in many languages. Van Dillen is a member of the Special Projects committee, which helps the Foundation pursue grants, oversee expansion efforts, and encourage partnerships between the Foundation and other organizations.

Staff

Carolyn Doran

Carolyn Doran has been the Chief Operating Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation since January 2007.

Barbara Brown

Office manager in the Florida office, since August 2006.

Sandra Ordonez

Communication Manager, since January 2007.

Cary Bass

Volunteer Coordinator, since April 2007.

Brion Vibber

Chief Technical Officer and MediaWiki release manager, since August 2005.

Brion Vibber is the lead developer and release manager of MediaWiki, the wiki software used on all Wikimedia projects. He is 26 years old and lives in California, USA. He has been involved as a developer for about three years, and has probably poked his finger into every development task, including maintenance of servers, performance improvement, development of features, debugging, and user interface.

Rob Halsell

Systems Administrator, since December 2006.

Tim Starling

Full time MediaWiki software developer, since April 2006 (contractor).

Mark Bergsma

Part time Networking Coordinator, since September 2006 (contractor).

Delphine Ménard

Part-time Chapter Coordinator, since February 2007, based out of Germany.