Hello, GNOME community! I am ecstatic to be joining the GNOME Foundation as the organization’s new executive director. I have been searching for a leadership position with a creative, forward-thinking, revolutionary nonprofit. My main goal was to find a place where I could apply my 32 years of nonprofit management and fundraising experience to advance a great mission, and I know I have found the right place—the right home—in GNOME.
I’m entering the GNOME community as a humble newcomer, with an open mind and a desire to learn from all of you. At the same time, I also bring lots of knowledge and experience to strengthen the GNOME Foundation so it can advance its mission effectively and have even more impact. I have an extensive and wide-ranging background in nonprofit management and fundraising. I worked for 25 years as a documentary film producer and filmmaker. I am an artist through and through. I also have lots of practical nonprofit organizational experience.
In addition, I am a passionate champion of democracy, collaboration, creativity, openness, and human unity. I also have direct experience with the open source world—from a biotechnology vantage point—from my time as the executive director of the BioBricks Foundation, an international science nonprofit whose mission is ensuring bioengineering is done in an open and ethical manner, and which developed open source legal tools and open source data-sharing for bioengineers. I am a fervent believer in open source!
I am impressed by the international reach of the GNOME community and the diversity of the individuals involved in creating all of this amazing output. Together, you have created something so powerful that can be further harnessed to create even more social benefit. I see many opportunities for the GNOME community to do even more incredible work, create even more products, solve even more problems, and leverage GNOME as a tool for social justice and human evolution at a pivotal time for all of us.
Now that I have shared a little bit about myself and my excitement about joining the GNOME Foundation, I invite you to reach out to me to introduce yourself, tell me about your passion for GNOME, and share your ideas for what the GNOME community needs at this point in its journey. I look forward to our collaboration!
Join us for a meet and greet with Holly!
Please join us online for a meet and greet with Holly on November 14th at 18:00 UTC (10:00 AM PST)! This is a fantastic opportunity to get to know our new Executive Director, hear about her vision for the Foundation, and ask questions. Please let us know if you plan to join the meet and greet by registering online: https://events.gnome.org/e/HollyMillion.
To ensure that Holly addresses as many questions as possible, we ask you to submit yours in advance. To submit your questions please visit https://events.gnome.org/event/172/surveys/81.
We look forward to chatting with you on November 14th!