With Ethereum nearing its first official launch with Frontier, we spent the last week of February on our holon in Switzerland discussing what the future of the Ethereum Foundation will look like. Since the beginning of the project, one of our main dreams has been to not only offer a world-class product, but also to build a world-class organization, with the quality of governance and transparency suitable for a foundation that would have the task of helping to organize the maintenance of the Ethereum code for decades to come. To that end, we have taken a series of steps including an effort to hire new administrative staff and an internal rebranding, and we are now officially announcing our search for new members to join our board of directors.
First, an introduction to roughly how the foundation is now structured from an organizational standpoint.
Stiftung Ethereum (which in German means “Ethereum Foundation”) is a Swiss-registered non-profit organization; specifically, in the wonderful town of Zug:
The Stiftung is the body that is ultimately tasked with managing the funds and determining the long-term vision and direction of Ethereum. The foundation is legally controlled by a body known as the Foundation Council; however, there is also a larger advisory group that has been involved in providing information for decision making. There are a number of legal entities registered in various countries in Europe, and each of these entities employs the people housed in their respective countries. The centers in Switzerland and Berlin are the largest. The Foundation Council is meant to make decisions occasionally and focus on the long term; day-to-day development decisions are handled by an “executive” consisting of myself, Gavin Wood, and Jeffrey Wilcke, with considerable assistance from Aeron Buchanan, Jutta Steiner, Kelley Becker, Frithjof Weinert, and others in administrative and security.
We are very grateful for the continued service of the Foundation’s current board and advisory board, and we have had a successful first year under their leadership. However, now that the scope and size of the organization has expanded considerably, we seek to simultaneously (i) introduce new members to serve on the Foundation Council and (ii) transition the Foundation’s activities and operations to look more like a mature organization. Board members will be required to, at a minimum, come to Switzerland two to five times a year to attend official board meetings, where the executive team will provide an update on the current status of the project and we will discuss directions and whether to approve the necessary agreements related to the Foundation. Anyone on the board is free to make further contributions beyond this. The new board is expected to be finalized and inaugurated by the end of June.
Ideal characteristics we are looking for in potential board candidates include:
- Experience participating in non-profit boards
- Status as a leader and innovator in a field (for-profit or not-for-profit) that could benefit from blockchain and decentralized application technology, ideally outside of the existing “cryptocurrency” space.
- Experience and interest in helping with long-term fundraising efforts.
- Minimal conflicts of interest (given the criteria above, conflicts of interest are unavoidable, but this means we prefer people who are primarily involved in non-profit activities or whose for-profit activities we can reasonably expect not to intersect much with their position in Ethereum)
- Enthusiasm and interest in decentralized technology
- No prior unethical or illegal behavior, particularly in the areas of embezzlement, insider trading, or fraud
- Diverse set of industry and national and cultural backgrounds (eg, hoping for a balance between North and South America, Europe and Asia)
If you think you meet most or all of these requirements, or know someone who does, please feel free to email [email protected].
