Wikimedia Foundation elections/FDC elections/2015/Candidates/da

I graduated from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Management and Operations (specialized in Business Analytics). During the day I work as a private-sector consultant, and by night I provide strategy consulting to nonprofits. In my free time, I work on a number of projects including starting a nationwide nonprofit organization related to the arts, an internet startup in the consulting domain, and I, slowly, write nonfiction. I have extensive experience in creating mission and vision statements, analyzing business processes, writing annual reports, and reviewing program effectiveness. I have both led nonprofit organizations with 5 figure revenues and provided consulting work for multi-million dollar organizations. I believe these skills align with what the WDC is looking for and would greatly aid in analyzing the overall return of projects applying to the WDC.

In my professional life - as VP Government Affairs at one of Israel’s leading digital companies, I'm in charge of our major clients, among them the President of Israel, politicians and ministries - and I helping them plan and execute projects worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Previously, I held several executive positions, including deputy operations officer at the IDF’s Central Computing System Unit– where I was in charge of many software and infrastructure projects totaling millions of dollars.

Since the establishment of Wikimedia Israel, and as its current Chairperson, I'm very involved in the Wikimedia movement – growing the chapter’s budget from a $10,000 to $250,000, and serving as co-producer of Wikimania, 2011 held in Haifa.

As a member of the movement for almost a decade, I have taken part in many of the changes the movement has experienced. On one hand, I support and believe in the need for financial and resource support for the organizations within the movement, but at the same time – the need to distribute the resources in an equal and efficient way while ensuring the intelligent use of the donors’ money. I believe my views on the subject are well known, i.e.- It is very important to work as an international movement but at the same time, not to become a "Wikimedia travel agency". Every dollar spent should be considered as if it was our own money. And that applies both to the foundation, chapters and other affiliations.

I lead WMIL to cooperate with many organizations and ministries and I believe the strength of chapters around the world is their ability not only to execute the program locally, but also to serve as the representatives of the movement, allowing to it to expand and to work and make an impact by cooperating with others. I believe my many years of experience with movement’s projects (both successful and less successful), my familiarity with the organizations, administrations and budget management will be useful for the FDC decision-making process.

served as a Wikimedia UK board member for 5 years, which gave me experience with managing budgets from £500 to £500,000+. This included helping put together the first activities of the chapter; hiring part-time employees for the first time for the organisation, and later hiring a chief executive; and establishing an office with a wide range of ongoing activities in a large number of different areas. I organised the first-ever Wikimedia editathon (at least, under that name) at the British Library in 2011, and I assisted with the creation of the first Wikimedian in Residence position and the second GLAM-WIKI conference, both at the British Museum. I believe that I have a good understanding of what is possible for an organisation to do at various stages of development, although I also think that the Wikimedia organisations need be doing a lot more than they are currently doing to support the Wikimedia community and to effectively further Wikimedia's goals.

I have been part of the Wikimedia movement for over a decade. I've made over 58,000 edits to the Wikimedia wikis so far. I was a founding board member of Wikimedia UK in 2008, and I served on its board for 5 years as its Membership Secretary (2008-09), Chair (09-10) and Secretary (10-13), giving me experience of leading a Wikimedia organisation, as well as understanding all of the elements of the work that the Wikimedia organisations do. I also served on the FDC as an ordinary member (2013-14) and as its Secretary (13-14). I aim to be as transparent as I can be (which is not always easy/possible!). With regards to my previous involvement with the FDC, you can see my 2013 pledge and COI statement and a record of my compensation for expenses from Wikimedia. I also publicly posted some thoughts on the FDC process in 2014.

I earned a Ph.D. in finance and taught finance for many years mainly in MBA programs, including long periods in Moscow, Russia, and Budapest, Hungary, before retiring This experience has made me very familiar with methods of making financial decisions, as well as exposed me to different cultures, and different people. I was part of the planning of the FDC itself in 2012 as part of the FDC advisory committee, and of its two-year evaluation last year, so I'm familiar with the basic process.

In academia there are always different programs and committees that require input or direction. For example, in Moscow I was Acting Dean for a year and for three years ran a Chartered Financial Analyst exam review program. In Budapest I was the equivalent of a Department Head.

The grant making process runs throughout academia. My favorite experience with grants was being part of a committee for 2 years that advised the US Embassy in Moscow on awarding Fulbright Scholarships to Russian scholars who wished to study and conduct research in America.

I've worked with many of the types or organizations that ask for funding. I was the US coordinator for Wiki Loves Monuments in its first year. I've worked, off-and-on, with GLAM projects since the start of Wikimedia's GLAM connection, e.g. with the Delaware Art Museum and a current project with the Presbyterian Historical Society. Though I live in Philadelphia, I've participated in many NYC and Washington DC chapter activities. I'm currently a member of Wikimedia DC.

Mostly though I like to take photos and write articles on Wikipedia on a broad range of topics, but mostly related to local history. For all the importance of chapters and organizations like GLAM, we always need to remember the folks who write and illustrate our encyclopedias and other projects.

I have a strong track record of identifying and supporting innovative Wikimedia activities so that they are successful, scalable and replicable - most especially in the field of GLAM outreach and partnerships. Over the last several years the scale and proportion of Chapters’ investment in GLAM activities has grown significantly and I have frequently been asked to advise on planning or help with the implementation of these programs. One effect of this growth in partnership projects is a direct and positive correlation with the professionalism and organisational stability of the Chapters that operate them.

In my previous work with the National Library of Australia and Creative Commons Australia as well as my current work with Europeana, I have been involved in the complete lifecycle of annual-planning - from reviewing previous projects (successful, unsuccessful, incomplete) to building new strategy and determining operational goals, funding application (and revisions!) as well as implementation and ongoing reporting.

I have been involved in many aspects of the WMF grantmaking process for many years - both as adviser and as recipient. I was an inaugural member of the "Individual Engagement Grants" committee; I oversaw several events that received "Project & Event" grants; and I have successfully applied for two "Travel & Participation" grants.

For almost a decade and have been deeply involved in movement-wide discussions on the nature of fundraising, funds dissemination, the role of affiliates and the WMF as well as the professionalisation of organisations. Over that time I have seen the processes change and evolve. I have worked for the WMF as a contractor; been an executive member of a Chapter; received and coordinated several grants at different levels; and worked closely with a dozen other affiliate organisations - from the biggest chapters to external non-profit organisations and small Wikimedia user-groups. This “institutional memory” will be very important in deliberating on individual proposals as well as helping to shape the recommendation principles of the committee. I have been involved in many aspects of the community. I am most proud of being the founder of our GLAM project and being the first Wikipedian-in-Residence. I have helped organise or been involved with projects run by many chapters and community groups across the world, convened three Wikimedia outreach conferences and three international workshops. I have also been the WMF’s Cultural Partnerships Fellow; the vice-president of Wikimedia Australia; and co-host of the Wikipedia Weekly podcast. I live in Italy and work for Europeana as Wikimedia liaison. I and previously coordinated digital engagement at the National Library of Australia and Creative Commons Australia. My academic work includes a thesis on the Historiography of Wikipedia and I have a Masters degree in Intellectual Property Law.

In nine years in Wikimedia Italia, I've took part / directed a number of programs, ranging from educational programs to partnerships with cultural institutions, organizing conferences and public events, and so on. More recently, I've worked on WMI's strategic plan.

Looking outside Wikimedia, one year ago I co-founded a startup company: business plans are now my daily job, also.

And I'm a mathematician, so if we have to talk about metrics and measurable results, I'm not easily scared :-)

Regarding my experience in Wikimedia grants, I've been involved in both the requests made by Wikimedia Italy: the PEG for the Wikimedia Conference in 2013 and its first APG request (just now). Only two, because Wikimedia Italy for most of its life has managed (and had the luck) to get enough funds from other sources. This means that I've been exposed to various non-Wikimedia grants; among the ones I leaded, Crescere che avventura (2011-2013), from a private Italian foundation, to teach about Wikipedia in schools, and EAGLE, an ongoing three-million-euros three-years European grant where Wikimedia has a small (yes, we are not getting millions) but important role (by the way, this resulted in the first use of Wikibase outside Wikidata, and I'm quite proud of that).

I've been a wikimedian for 11 years (I might be the oldest wikipedian in this election...); I started editing the Italian Wikipedia in 2004, and I've been elected administrator in 2006. In the same year I joined Wikimedia Italia, and I've been in its board from 2011 to 2014; now I'm Coordinator for relations with institutions.

In these years I've seen different parts of our movement, both the online editing, organizing programs, and managing the chapter.

Firstly, I believe I could help in the reporting / numbers side as I see here field for improvement. Being an economist and finances professional, I have been working in the field of risk and reporting for 8+ years and I know good and bad sides of this process more than enough. Secondly, benchmarks and problem solving: I am a data cruncher, with a MBA visit at UCLA and unfinished PhD (wikis and job won). Thirdly, understanding and communication: I am a dated Wikimedian, coming from a mid-size, CEE chapter, somewhat bridging experiences of East and West, big and small budget, emerged and yet-to-emerge countries. Moreover, my additional background are professional 5yrs studies in psychology, about to complete in a few months (mind you, education in Poland can be still free and I am using it). Finally and perhaps foremost, I am a wiki and a chapter person, serving on the board for ca. 3 years. I hope it all lets me to serve my partners, esp. Board and Affiliates, better.

Thanks to the education, trainings and profession, I feel able to work on grantmaking utilizing a proper framework or developing new tools.
Judging from personal experiences, nowadays every PhD student can claim they received their grants lesson ;) but for me my chapter and global Movement were more important. Seeing my chapter rising from a loose pack of geeks and then service in a board, during cautious professionalization and capacity building, let me walk in the shoes of many affiliates. Then the meetings with fellow Wikimedians helped me to understand more. OTOH, Polish Board gave me an oversight perspective, as aside of evaluating projects and programmes, we delegate the majority of grants per se to empowered subcoms. Finally, my brief participation in GAC, till I needed to let me cross out due to temporary health issues, gave me great lessons of WMF's expectations, global grantmaking, working with diverse submitors and wiki initiatives.

Having acted in numerous roles: editor, sysop, arbcom, speaker, trainer, evangelist and evaluator, I have learned a lot upon initiatives of my home chapter and others. GAC, meetings with WMF Staff and fellow Wikimedians, research on quantitative data of chapters gave me further global perspective. I believe combining the lessons locally learned with proper standards of the Movement and merging it with my general background would let me bring many useful things to the table. Finally, for the time being my home chapter remains self-funded and uninvolved in the FDC process, separating me from potential conflicts of interest.