Announcing the results of the Governing Board election

And that’s a wrap for this 2026 Governing Board election season! 🏁

After 49 days of ramping up, we have reached the end of the process and are now ready to announce the 12 freshly (re)elected Governing Board members.

After one year of setting things up (2024), the last year (2025) has been the first year in which the Governing Board was able to truly deliver concrete value, figuring out the blueprints for highly functioning Working Groups, aligning on expectations of engagement from Governing Board members, feeding back on the Foundation’s decisions and clarifying the processes and frameworks in general. This meant that with greater clarity on expectations we have seen a few board members stepping down, leading to a deeper rework of the Governing Board during these elections than we initially predicted (and would predict in the future). However, with clearer expectations being set and a bigger ecosystem, we are now confident that everyone who has thrown their name in the hat is ready to execute and support the Foundation’s mission.

So without further ado, I would like to congratulate and welcome our newly elected Governing Board members, whether it is their first or second term on the Board!

🔗Representatives of the Ecosystem members

All three seats were up for renewal this year: we’re glad to keep Kim and Nico around for another term and happy to welcome Jade!

• Kim Brose (Matrix Community Events)
• Nicolas Werner (Nheko-Reborn)
• Jade Ellis (Continuwuity)

🔗Representative of the Platinum member

The Platinum seat was up for renewal this year and we are glad Neil is sticking around!

• Neil Johnson (Element)

🔗Representatives of the Spec Core team

Two seats were up for renewal this year, we are happy to welcome Alexey and keep Rich around for another term!

• Alexey Rusakov
• Richard van der Hoff

🔗Representatives of the Guardians

Three seats were up for renewal this year, but only two candidates stepped up (as I am sitting on the Governing Board as the Acting Managing Director). We are glad to keep Ross and Matthew around for another term!

• Matthew Hodgson
• Ross Schulman

🔗Representatives of the Individual members

Following another member stepping down last week, we now have two out-of-cycle seats to fill rather than the one initially announced, so the first two elected candidates will get a seat. We’re excited to welcome two new members: Max and Mathieu!

• Max
• Mathieu Velten

🔗Representatives of the Silver members

Following two members stepping down we had two out-of-cycle seats to fill during this election, and are happy to welcome Yoan and Niklas!

• Yoan Pintas (DINUM)
• Niklas Zender (Famedly)

We will also welcome a new Governing Board member who joined as a replacement of his ex-colleague Brad Murray at Automattic, representative of the Gold member: please welcome Nick Mills-Barrett!

Meanwhile, we would also like to extend a huge thanks to all departing Governing Board members who have helped a lot in shaping how we work and ensure the highest impact. It was great to have you around and we are grateful for the time you have put into supporting the Foundation!

The new members will be onboarded during the next few weeks by our current chair Greg and vice-chair Kim, and we are looking forward to getting to work!

Congratulations all and welcome again!

Amandine