2024:Program/Fireside Chat with the Wikimedia Foundation Executives

Session title: Fireside Chat with the Wikimedia Foundation Executives

Session type: Keynote session

Track: Keynote session

Language: en

Join the Wikimedia Foundation executives for a casual conversation and open Q&A about priorities, progress and the future.

Description

We’ll kick off the session with a conversation between the panelists onstage. They’ll talk about their priorities for the coming year and looking ahead to 2030, share progress over the last year, and discuss decision making at the Foundation. Then, for the second half of the session, we’ll open it up to a larger conversation with the audience. We’ll be taking questions virtually and in person. Attendees are also welcome to submit questions in advance through this eventyay or on Telegram to Nadee Gunasena.

Session recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYc5gnZfnpU&list=PLhV3K_DS5YfJ9Wvo43XRDbCC2dfhdS7BG&t=31422

How does your session relate to the event theme, Collaboration of the Open?

This session will explore the theme of the Collaboration of the Open and how it informs who we are as a movement.

What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Speakers

• Maryana Iskander

Maryana Iskander (she/her) is the Chief Executive Officer, a senior staff officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, overseeing the operations of the Foundation and its professional staff. She reports to the Board of Trustees and is supported by the Office of the CEO.

Maryana joined the Wikimedia Foundation after a decade as the CEO of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, a non-profit social enterprise focused on building African solutions to tackle the global crisis of youth unemployment. She has also served as Chief Operating Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a volunteer-led social movement.

Maryana was born in Cairo, Egypt, before emigrating with her parents to the United States. Since then, she has lived and studied in the United States and Europe before settling in South Africa.

Her career has been shaped by work that melds people, impact, and technology to break down barriers and increase access to opportunity.

• Selena Deckelmann

Selena Deckelmann (pronouns: she/her) is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation. She brings more than 20 years of experience in open source technology, product management and engineering leadership.

Previously, Selena was Senior Vice President at Mozilla, where she led a team of 400 people responsible for all Firefox product and technology functions including desktop, mobile, web platform, and browser services. She oversaw some of the company’s greatest achievements including infrastructure projects like Quantum Flow and Project Fission, key features like Enhanced Tracking Protection, and services such as Firefox Monitor. In her nine years at Mozilla, Selena held various other roles including Vice President for Firefox Desktop, Senior Director for Web Platform Engineering and Gecko Runtime, and Senior Manager for Gecko Security Engineering.

Selena also brings experience from her previous roles as co-founder of Prime Radiant, a software as a service business that explored how to improve business processes at scale with checklist automation software, and as Consulting Director of Development for The Ada Initiative, an organization dedicated to increasing the participation of women in open source and technology communities. She was a major contributor to PostgreSQL, one of the largest free and open source databases in the world. She is a Python Foundation Fellow and former Major Contributor to PostgreSQL.

• Lisa Seitz-Gruwell

Lisa Seitz-Gruwell is the Chief Advancement Officer and Deputy to the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2016, she helped launch the Wikimedia Endowment and serves as its President.

Before joining the Wikimedia Foundation in 2011, Lisa previously worked as Chief Operating Officer at the Rappaport Family Foundation and Skyline Public Works, a fund that blends venture capital with philanthropy; as the District Director and Press Secretary for the California Assembly Majority Leader and in several roles for the then mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom. She also has previously worked as a Political Consultant and Campaign Manager for Democratic candidates in California, Montana, Michigan, Connecticut and Oregon. Lisa was also appointed to serve as a Civil Service Commissioner for the City and County of San Francisco. In addition, Lisa has served as a board member of several organizations including the Montana Environmental Information Center, the Progressive States Network, and the San Francisco Rock Project.