Executive Director

Background
The Board has been discussing the idea of hiring one full-time staff member for OSGeo. This page is an attempt to describe the responsibilities of an Executive Director for the Foundation.

Responsibilities
Similar to the role of CEO in a large corporation, the Executive Director serves as the focal point for the OSGeo. The ED manages the day to day operation of the foundation within the available resources. The ED communicates vision, policies, and status to the organization and the public. The ED coordinates activities with the various committees, projects, and members of the OSGeo. The ED reports status, establishes board agenda items, and requests decisions or support from the board when needed. The ED is appointed and removed by the board, the ED manages all other paid staff. The Board retains overall responsibility for establishing top level policy, formal process, and final approval for project acceptance and graduation.

Responsibilities include:


 * Acting as spokesperson and coordinator for OSGeo activities
 * Acting as a "mentor" for Committees in times of need.
 * Acting as an "ambassador" for OSGeo at community and industry events
 * Organising presence + materials for events
 * Being an active member of the Website Committee and help work on the website
 * With VisCom, some oversight of web and documentation materials
 * With FunCom, some responsibility for managing fundraising process, grantwriting
 * Acting as primary contact person for the outside, getting requests to appropriate places
 * Help plan and implement running infrastructure needs

Please add what you think should be in-remit to this list! The point here is to come up with a clear job description eventually; but it would be helpful to overspecify rather than underspecify this.

Powers
I think they need to have some degree of spending authority. They should be able to take actions within current guidelines (for instane accept sponsorships according to a sponsorship policy once we have a policy).

The shouldn't be able to accept projects into incubation, or graduate them. They shouldn't be able to make major spending decisions on their own. They shouldn't be able to declare people charter members.

Basically, I think they need quite a bit of leeway to get things done, but they can't countermand or usurp the board or committees.

Questions

 * 1) Would there be any overlap with the Collabnet staff position responsibilities?

I would assume that this would be a resource to be managed and under the ED. mrl