Special Meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, 24 June 2024, 08:30 US/Pacific

Attendance

The Vice Chair appointed himself as Acting Chair in absence of the Chair.
The Acting Chair called the meeting to order at 08:40 US/Pacific.
The Acting Chair noted the presence of a quorum (4), being a majority of the current authorized number of Directors.

This special meeting was called for consideration of a time-sensitive Executive Committee report & recommendation regarding personnel matters.
This meeting is not scheduled for executive session and minutes will be published after due consideration and approval.
The proposed agenda was approved as presented for the run of the meeting.

The President presented a report from the Executive Committee regarding recommendations for hiring an interim executive director:
- The urgency for this action is to be able to communicate Holly's announcement together with identification of the interim candidate.
- Further, we want to be able to have conversations this week with our funders to help them understand that work is underway in responding to the personnel announcements.
- Concern had been expressed about the ability for the candidate to accomplish much in a short (2-month +/-) duration.
- Further identification of candidates would require advertising the role again and soliciting candidates.
- All assembled Directors explained their rationale for their votes.
Consideration of recommendations:
- See full written motion at https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Board/-/issues/683
- VOTE: The Board voted unanimously to authorize the President to make an offer of employment to the named candidate for the role of Interim Executive Director, including start date, compensation, and duration of no greater than three (3) months, and to extend its gratitude to the outgoing Executive Director for her service to the Foundation and GNOME Project community.

The Board discussed the announcement of the election results which happened on Discourse earlier today. Consensus was to use the Board's Matrix room for discussion about any public statements following up to the announcement.
Start date of new board terms (and end of previous terms) is July 28.
There were no other announcements or business for the Board's consideration.
The Acting Chair announced the next meeting, scheduled for July 17 (all day) as the Board's annual organizational meeting. Additionally, time is held on July 11 at 08:00 US/Pacific if needed for other urgent new business.
The Acting Chair adjourned the meeting at 09:02 US/Pacific.