Hi Dave On 2014-05-18 12:58, Dave Neary <dneary gnome org> wrote:
* Technical proficiency & reputation in the community, including free software cultural alignment * Strategy experience - the ability to formulate and communicate a direction for GNOME * Administrative and organizational experience * Business acumen and experience growing a commercial ecosystem * Communication/marketing/evangelism experience * Cost Of these, which do you feel are the most important for GNOME right now, and why? Are there other criteria which you think are important that I didn't list?
Right now (taking into account the poor financial situation that the Foundation is facing), I think that a candidate for the executive director position would be someone who has experience of raising funds for not-for-profit organisations. For GNOME, the board does not exert strong control over the project, but tries to steer it in the right direction by ensuring that funding is directed appropriately, making the executive director role particularly challenging.
With the increased administrative load that the Outreach Program for Women has brought to GNOME, the Foundation's administrative assistant will need support from the executive director. I do not think that technical proficiency is an essential quality for an executive director, if by that you mean ability to code. For example, I think that a talented hacker with no fundraising experience might be a bad candidate for the executive director role. I think that a more important quality is that of understanding the position of GNOME in Free Software and the wider software community, with the ability to use that knowledge to raise funds effectively.
Due to the challenging nature of the executive director role, especially with the declining revenues of the Foundation, it may be difficult to offer a generous salary. I think that the board should investigate offering a lower base salary, which would then be supplemented with performance-related bonuses, such as if more fee-paying advisory board members were acquired. Done correctly, this would help to manage the cost of the executive director position, and encourage good performance.
-- http://amigadave.com/
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