Wikimedia Engineering/Introducing Victoria Coleman - Chief Technology Officer/ja


 * This message, "Welcome Victoria Coleman, Chief Technology Officer", was sent by Katherine Maher on 2 November 2016.

Hi everyone,

I’m really excited to introduce our new Chief Technology Officer, Victoria Coleman. Victoria comes to us with more than 20 years of experience in consumer and enterprise technology. And as you’ll quickly learn when you start getting to know her, she is deeply passionate about how our mission advances education around the world.

Victoria’s first day is November 7.

As many of you know, the CTO search has been an intensive process and our highest recruiting priority in recent months. People from across the organization contributed to the effort, most notably a CTO hiring committee that included directors and senior staff from the Technology department, and two subgroups with representatives from the C-level, Technology, and Product teams. In total, we reviewed nearly 900 candidates, advancing 190 to recruiter screens, and reviewing 70 with the hiring committee.

I want to personally thank every single person who was involved in this rigorous and process. I’m so pleased by the focus and dedication of the Foundation’s recruiting team, and the many staff and volunteers who supported this search.

We were looking for someone with a track record of success leading strategy and execution for technology platforms at scale. We also wanted someone who would be an effective leader for our Technology department and partner to Product teams. We needed someone who would thrive within our culture and be an inclusive collaborator with staff and community. After careful consideration, we agreed that Victoria met all of these requirements and then some.

Victoria has deep experience across consumer and enterprise technology fields, and is a longtime advocate for innovation in education and the public sector. She is a strong leader with expertise in strategy and development for mobile and tablet platforms, connected devices, cyber security, and web services at scale. She brings operational excellence in strategic long-term planning, execution, and delivery, and running large, distributed teams.

Most recently, Victoria served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for the Connected Home Division of Technicolor, where she was responsible for innovation strategy, product management, technology roadmaps, and technical due diligence for acquisitions and partnerships. Previously, as Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Harman, she led the core technology platforms of the Infotainment Division including systems and software, media, tuner, navigation, connectivity, and advanced driver assist systems. Before this, she served as Vice President, Emerging Technologies at Nokia, Vice President, Software Engineering of Hewlett-Packard’s webOS global business unit, and Vice President of Samsung's Advanced Institute of Technology.

Victoria also has deep familiarity with open source software development, having witnessed the rise of the Unix movement first as a student and later as an instructor. She has been actively involved in the development of the Linux-based LiMo (renamed Tizen). She passionately believes in the power of open source and is very familiar with leveraging open source to build products.

She has also been selected to participate on numerous advisory councils in higher education and the public sector. She serves on the advisory Board of the Santa Clara University Department of Computer Engineering, and she is also a Senior Advisor to the Director of the  University of California Berkeley’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society.She serves as a volunteer advisor on both Lockheed Martin’s Technology Advisory Group and on the United States Department of Defense’s Defense Science Board where she offers advice and recommendations on science, technology, manufacturing, acquisition process, and other matters that draw on her expertise. She has also been a volunteer advisor on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Information Science and Technology advisory group as well as DARPA’s Defense Sciences Research Council.

Victoria received her B.Sc and M.Sc in Electronic Computer Systems and Computer Aided Logic Design respectively from the University of Salford, UK and her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Manchester, UK. She holds 4 patents and is the author of over 60 articles and books (!). Born in Greece, she has worked with teams around the world, including in Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Finland, Germany, India, Israel, Korea, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. More information on Victoria’s full background can be found in the blog post about the announcement.

As is evident from her extensive and varied background, Victoria brings deep technical knowledge and operational excellence to the CTO role. She is passionate about education, our mission, and to build and design technology for global audiences.

A native of Greece, Victoria is looking forward to becoming a more active contributor on Greek Wikipedia and getting to know staff and Wikimedia communities in the coming months.

You can learn more about Victoria in the blog post announcing her.

Please join me in welcoming Victoria to the Foundation. We’re so thrilled to have her here!

Katherine