Kelly Battles and Arnnon Geshuri join Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

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Meet the two new members of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees: Kelly Battles (left), and Arnnon Geshuri (right). Photos by Myleen Hollero, freely licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Today the Wikimedia Foundation announced two new members to its Board of Trustees: Kelly Battles and Arnnon Geshuri. The new Trustees bring deep expertise in strategy and financial oversight, and diversity and organizational development, as well as a commitment to advancing Wikimedia’s vision of free knowledge for the world.
“We considered dozens of candidates from all over the world, with not-for-profit and technology experience, and the highest professional standards.” said Dariusz Jemielniak, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board Governance Committee and Board Trustee. “Kelly’s finance and auditing skills will be essential to the Board’s oversight and budgeting responsibilities. Arnnon’s expertise in talent development and cultural diversity will be indispensable for the development of the Wikimedia Foundation, and communications and transparency within the Wikimedia movement. We look forward to partnering with them.”
A veteran financial executive, Kelly brings more than 25 years of experience in financial management and administrative oversight for leading technology companies and non-profit organizations. She currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of Bracket Computing, a cloud virtualization company in Mountain View, California. Her earlier roles included Chief Financial Officer at Host Analytics, Vice President of Finance at IronPort, and Director of Strategy and Corporate Development at Hewlett Packard.
“As a non-profit supporting one of the most popular websites in the world, the Wikimedia Foundation has a unique responsibility to practice transparent, effective stewardship of donor resources,” said Kelly. “I am excited to lend my financial and strategic experience to an organization dedicated to making knowledge more freely available to the world.”
Arnnon brings more than 20 years of experience in developing strong organizational cultures with diverse, passionate employees. He is currently the VP of Human Resources  at Tesla Motors, where he shepherds Tesla’s unique culture and oversees all global people operations, analytics, and staffing. Before joining Tesla, Arnnon served as Senior Director of HR and Staffing at Google, where he built the company’s talent acquisition and diversity strategy, growing the organization to more than 20,000 people in five years. Earlier in his career, Arnnon served as Vice President of People Operations and Director of Global Staffing at E*TRADE Financial.
“I have always believed in the power of open, transparent knowledge. Wikipedia represents some of the best aspects of our changing world: deeper knowledge, collaboration, and, ultimately, understanding,” said Arnnon. “This opportunity is a true privilege for me and I am thrilled to help support this powerful mission.”
“Kelly and Arnnon bring a special combination of expertise, integrity, and love for our mission. From Arnnon’s people and culture expertise to Kelly’s strong financial management background, both members bring valuable skills to strengthen our Board and help grow the Wikimedia movement for future generations. Most importantly, they bring a deep commitment to making knowledge more freely available for people around the world,” said executive director Lila Tretikov.
Kelly and Arnnon were approved unanimously by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Both terms are effective Jan 1, 2016 and will last for two years.
Please see the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees for complete biographies.

Katherine Maher, Chief Communications Officer
Wikimedia Foundation

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

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Arnnon played a fundamental role in an unquestionably illegal non-solicitation agreement between Apple and Google while he was ‘Senior Staffing Strategist’ at Google, as detailed here – [1]. In a time when there are severe questions about the governance of the Wikimedia Foundation, and immediately after a community elected trustee has been removed from his seat with absolutely no adequate explanation given, how is it remotely plausible that it’s a good idea to appoint a trustee coming from outside the movement who has previously shown no qualms in directly violating the plain letter of the law? And is someone who… Read more »