User:Sue Gardner

I'm the former ED of the Wikimedia Foundation, currently a special advisor to the WMF Board of Trustees and Executive Director.

I'm a Canadian citizen, born in Barbados, permanent resident of the United States. I live in San Francisco. I edit mostly on the English Wikipedia. When I was running the WMF I was also pretty active on meta: I'm expecting my meta activity will likely now decline :)

I've got an honorary doctorate of laws from Ryerson University, I represented the Wikimedia Foundation as a Technology Pioneer at the 2008 World Economic Forum at Davos, was once ranked by Forbes magazine as the world’s 70th most powerful woman, in 2013 was the inaugural recipient of the Knight Innovation Award, and was once very pleased to be described by a German newspaper as the Head of the Nerdprojekt. I've been interviewed many, many times by media around the world, have visited 48 countries on six continents, and given talks in 19. I'm an advisor or board member for a variety of non-profit, grantmaking and policy organizations, mostly related to technology, free culture, media and digital rights.

My work is motivated by the desire to ensure that everybody in the world has access to the information they want and need, so they can make the best-possible decisions about their lives. You can see why I like Wikipedia :)

I spent the first ten years of my working life writing for newspapers and magazines and making radio documentaries and talk programming. In 2000 I started working online, and in 2003 I became the head of CBC.CA, the English-language website of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2007 I became ED of the Wikimedia Foundation. Between 2007 and 2014, Wikipedia’s credibility has significantly grown, readership has doubled, number of articles has tripled, WMF revenues have grown from USD 2MM to USD 60MM, making the WMF the fastest-growing nonprofit in the United States (as measured by revenue growth), and the WMF has earned Charity Navigator’s highest possible rating for excellence in fiscal management and good governance. I am proud to have been part of all of that :)

I left my role as ED of the WMF 1 June 2014, because I've been disturbed by how the Internet is evolving, and I want to play a role in fixing it. I haven't yet decided exactly how I will plan to do that: first, I am going to take a very long holiday :)