[OpenID board] August 27, 2020 Executive Committee Call Minutes

[Mike Jones]

August 27, 2020 Executive Committee Call Minutes

Present:
Don Thibeau - Executive Director
Mike Jones
Nat Sakimura
Bjorn Hjelm
George Fletcher
John Bradley

Absent:
(none)

Visitors:
Mike Leszcz - OpenID Foundation
Tom Smedinghoff - Locke Lord LLP

[While we didn't meet the week's quorum requirement for this meeting, everyone is in attendance, so we are empowered to have an official Executive Committee meeting.]

[The meeting is being held in executive session.]


1.       Don's Statement
Don will remain involved in identity matters.  He wants to enable a good transition and continued success for the foundation.


2.       Transition Plan
Mike Leszcz went through the Transition Plan deck that Nat shared with the EC.  Points include:

  *   We shouldn't be looking for a one-to-one replacement.
  *   Mike Leszcz will continue to perform administration.
  *   Bjorn Hjelm will be primary contact for external and internal inquiries about the ED position.
  *   Don is willing to stay on until the first 2021 board meeting in February.
  *   Don is willing to act as an ambassador during 2021.
  *   Bjorn and John have agreed to continue in their existing roles.
  *   There's a first half 2020 financial summary.  We haven't seen any significant dropoff in membership.  The certification program continues to be a significant budget investment.  We are spending about $17,000/month on certification and taking in about $4,500.  End of year we should have about $219,000.  Mike Leszcz will distribute the summary to the EC.
  *   The transition plan is a starting point.
  *   Bjorn could lead a discussion at next week's EC call.
  *   The board meeting was rescheduled to Thursday, October 15th.
  *   We could have a meeting including corporate members next year.


3.       Notifying the Board
We should notify the full board soon and include them.  Don volunteered to individually contact the other board members.

Mike Jones suggested adding a board meeting in mid-September.  Mike Leszcz will announce the board meeting on Thursday, September 3rd.


4.       What qualities we're looking for in our next ED
Mike Jones suggested that business skills are important.  Nat said that this goes to the job description.  Nat said that the ED should be able to keep the interests of the member companies in mind so that we'll have adequate funding and high participation.  We want someone with strategic vision.  Bjorn and John agreed.  Mike invited Don to contribute to these thoughts as well.  George said that fabulous people skills are key.


5.       Establishing a Hiring Committee
Mike Jones suggested that we establish a hiring committee.  We talked about the hiring committee from ten years ago.  He suggested possibly including Eric Sachs.  We discussed having about 4-5 people interview candidates.


6.       Timing
John suggested that we leave the final decision to the new board but we start the hiring process soon.  Mike Jones said that typically there is very little change of board members in February; John said that there could be changes, once people know that changes are afoot.  George agreed and is in favor of getting started.  He said that putting together qualifications could take some time.  Nat suggested we try to bless the hiring committee at the September board meeting.  Mike Jones stated that the hiring committee should include people who have done actual hiring.


7.       Compensation
John said that we will need to determine what we're willing to offer the candidate.  Mike Jones agreed and said that, as always, it will partially depend upon what they bring to the table.


8.       Outreach Mechanisms
We discussed how to reach out to candidates.  Don said they found him largely by luck.  (Brian Kissel somehow knew of Don; Eric Sachs and he talked to Don; the rest is history!)

Don reported that OASIS just conducted a year-long search for a new Executive Director.  He suggested that James Bryce Clark could be a resource to us at this point.  Bjorn will reach out to him.  Their new ED is https://www.oasis-open.org/people/staff/guy-martin.


9.       What will our public messages be?
Possible messages include:  Thank Don.  The future remains bright.  Parts or all of the job description.  We should think about additional messages, timing of them, and their intended audiences.


10.   Certification Migration Update
We have certifications for all of the certification profiles on the new system except for four RP profiles.  We're still trying to get those.  We've updated the instructions to more clearly explain what people have to do to certify.  We authorized Mike Leszcz to turn off the Python certification servers op.certificaiton.openid.net and rp.certification.openid.net at the end of this month.


11.   Liaison Update
We unanimously appointed Kristina Yasuda of Microsoft as the liaison officer to DIF.


12.   Next Meeting
There will be an EC call on Thursday, September 3rd at 3pm Pacific Time.

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