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Interview

Exclusive: interview with interim ED Katherine Maher


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After the Wikimedia Foundation’s roller-coaster ride of the past few months, the appointment of chief communications officer Katherine Maher to lead the organisation as interim executive director has been greeted with relief by Wikimedians and WMF staff.

Maher brings to her new role a significant track record of international experience in technology-oriented management, community engagement, and governance. Getting people to trust each other and work together appears to be a hallmark of her style.

Her experience began with programmatic work and the modelling of market and governance stability in the Middle East. She went on to manage HSBC’s international development program from the UK, moving to financial and market analysis in the company’s Düsseldorf and Toronto offices.

Since then, Maher's career has mostly been in the NGO sector—first for a specific project in establishing an open-source citizen reporting site for Lebanon; then in the management, project design, and advocacy of ICT-supported endeavours for UNICEF; the non-partisan US National Democratic Institute; and the World Bank. In the 16 months before she was chief communications officer at the WMF, she was the advocacy director for Access Now, leading their global advocacy on human rights and technology policy.

The Signpost interviewed Maher last week by Skype audio on a range of issues—from the impending recruitment of key WMF managers to more existential challenges that face the Wikimedia movement.

Tony1 speaks with Katherine Maher, 25 min 32 sec


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A transcript of the interview by Graham Pearce is available.

During the interview, a number of terms and abbreviations are used:


Editor's note: post-production audio advice by Bill Dengler and Graham Pearce.
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  • Why is the interviewer so obsessed with replacing Mediawiki? He is asking a question and giving an answer at the same time, then forcing the interviewee to agree (which obviously is the wrong person to ask). You should ask difficult questions, but you should not take part on the conversation. --jynus (talk) 10:56, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm equally impressed by her answers to a tough interview. and think she would be a good permanent ED. Nevertheless, it's too early to put Maher up as the next consensus ED - that would be a disservice to the community, the board, and especially to her. One of her chief tasks - perhaps the chief task - is to enable the ED search to find the best ED candidate. There will be many good candidates, and having the community put her forward as the obvious candidate would put her in a false (COI) position. Please let her do her first job - as interim ED - then we can judge whether she is the best ED candidate. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:52, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And she can decide if she even wants the job. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am also equally impressed.with her. EllenCT (talk) 03:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am glad she has insider experience from a large abusive bank. I am sure that makes her more cognizant of the abuses. EllenCT (talk) 03:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is a bit disappointing how almost every answer is "Great question! There are multiple viewpoints and we will consider all of them", which isn't really an answer. Seems that interim director does not want to express any opinions of her own, or has none. --SSneg (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mobile view much too wide

The mobile view is quite bad, I guess it is not only the Katherine s foto too big. Sign... ThurnerRupert (talk) 13:59, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a known issue. :-) Someday it'll get fixed. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]



       

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