Two top employees of the Wikimedia Foundation have resigned, citing disagreements with the board. Both publicly tendered their resignations to the community yesterday on a foundation mailing list, but say their resignations are unrelated and the timing coincidental.
Danny Wool, who has worked out of the foundation’s St. Petersburg, Florida, office since October 2005 under the title of grants coordinator, and who is widely regarded as the number two guy at Wikimedia, discussed his resignation first in a message to the foundation list.
That note was later followed by one from Brad Patrick, general counsel and interim Executive Director of the foundation, who resigned formally to the foundation earlier this month but decided to announce it publicly to the community after seeing Wool’s note go up. Patrick will continue with the foundation until March 31 and has retained executive headhunting firm Phillips Oppenheim to help find a permanent director for the foundation.
The Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, providing administrative and financial support to Wikipedia and other wiki projects.
In an interview with Wired News, Patrick cited concerns about the informal structure of the board and the inexperience of its seven members.
The board is composed of people from the Wikipedia community, and board members are elected by the community. There are no particular qualifications to become a board member. Among the current members are a biotech and genetics researcher, a former CEO of an options trading firm, a couple of computer scientists, a law student at George Mason University, and a musician and composer.
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