Wikimedia Foundation elections/2025/Candidates/Michał Buczyński
Michał Buczyński (Aegis Maelstrom)
Aegis Maelstrom (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA • AE)
| Candidate details | 
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| Candidate video statement | ||
| Total word count for the whole application (required + optional questions) is 2500 words. | ||
| Have you read the minimum candidate requirements and verified you meet the minimum qualifications and the candidate eligibility requirements? | Yes | |
| Have you read the candidate guidelines and agree to abide by the guidelines? | Yes | |
| Required questions | ||
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| Why are you running for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees? What would you contribute? What would you like to learn more about? | I'm running as I care for our future. For our relevance, values and the Movement. In times of increasing centralization and AI-automation of knowledge, the world expects from us more - yet still needs human verification, curation and local context. We - diverse, independent and distributed individuals and communities - can offer a lot when equipped in good tools and organized. I believe my skills and experience will help the Foundation and Movement to operate, innovate and make great things. | |
| Please describe your Wikimedia experience (such as contributions to the Wikimedia projects, memberships in Wikimedia organizations or affiliates, activities as a Wikimedia movement organizer, or participation with a Wikimedia movement ally organization). | Active since 2004, locally, regionally and globally.
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| From your perspective, what should the Wikimedia Foundation be prioritizing over the next 3-5 years, and why do you see these as the most important priorities? | We need to prioritize our future and the scale of impact. Often we argue on details or compete for small pool of resources, missing the bigger picture and what we can be, innovating and working together. Technology and modern tools (including responsible "AI" assistance) to empower human editors and release their time to do most impactful things. Tools protecting us from a flood of AI-generated content and bad actors. Work on our technological fundamentals, new interfaces of both contribution and readership, better content translation and curation - the work which can benefit us all, inspire and bring newcomers. Hubs / Centers of Competence to do more with limited resources we have. Common vision and agreed accountability of us to each other. | |
| Please describe your experience with governing bodies of organizations (nonprofit or for-profit), mentioning the scope of your responsibilities, as well as the complexity of the organization (in terms of scale of operations, budget, number of people involved, or other meaningful measures) and the size of the board or body. | Building capacity and maturing a Wikimedia affiliate: hiring, partnerships, fundraising, fiscal and compliance responsibilities, policy making including policies on BoT and members, legal protection and representation, strategic planning, programmatic evaluation, financial management, board and staff skillbuilding, and many more, evolving it from no ED and 1-2 FTE to 11 FTEs.
Kicking-off the CEE Hub, including providing fiscal sponsorship by Wikimedia Polska Evaluating and providing budgetary, programmatic, governance recommendations to the WMF and larger Wikimedia affiliates globally. Great opportunity to work in a diverse, dedicated group. This also taught me much about diversity of affiliates and contexts in our Movement, as well as complexity of the WMF. | |
| Questions from the Community (required) | ||
| These questions were sourced from the community. These questions are required to consider your application complete. If this section is not complete by 23:59 AoE, July 8 (11:59 UTC, July 9), your application will not be considered. | ||
| How do you plan to ensure transparency and accountability in your decision-making processes as a member of the Board of Trustees? | Transparency and accountability in decision-making are required in all the levels, and I agree with the Movement Charter Supplementary Document: Principles of Decision Making I co-crafted for the unaccepted Movement Charter. I would like to work with the BoT on possibility of accepting and implementing these or similar principles on a global level. Speaking for BoT itself, the Board acts as a group, so these issues need to be agreed and performed by the group. I will be happy to learn what improvements the communities would expect here, and you can contact me in this manner. | |
| What will be the first new issue you would like to bring to the attention of the Board for discussion, and how would you approach it? | It is too early too know the most pressing topics in 6 months, and the new Board will need to onboard new members, and split the work first. I want to offer well-prepared proposals, so smaller discussions and inquiries on the state of things will be necessary. Regarding areas: see things I want to prioritize first (tools, technology, impact), as well as organization health, metrics and finance. Last but not least, I want to discuss with the Board which parts of the community-sourced and approved Movement Charter (as the whole package was not accepted) could be adopted by the Board. | |
| How should decisions about trade-offs and prioritisation in Wikimedia technology or product areas be approached? Please explain what the trade-off is in your view. | I am not only a long time board member but also a senior product owner and developer in a complex multinational organization myself, so I could give a plenty of layers here. From the WMF strategic perspective, the most important question is which resources and areas you can grow, recreate and easily spend, and which are the most scarce. In our position, we can try raising more money but we will not revert time, and without innovation we will be losing audiences and contributors fast. We need to provide current knowledge (keep Business As Usual), and work on major improvements. Thus, we need to spend money to buy time: run innovative test projects, provide parallel teams: working on current tech, and working on a challenger, the future and better solution. We should co-operate with global communities and provide funds for local innovation. Neglecting future to save money is a saving we cannot afford. | |
| The number of Wikimedia affiliates has grown significantly over the past few years, but ensuring adequate resourcing can be a challenge. Given this, how might we rethink the movement ecosystem, including how affiliates are evaluated, engaged, and resourced? | Three most obvious directions, proposed by Strategy, are:
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| As the Wikimedia Foundation's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) position transitions, what qualities do you believe the incoming leader should embody, and how would these contribute to the advancement of the Wikimedia movement? | New CEO will be picked by the current Board from the options available, and there is no single perfect mix of qualities. Nevertheless, I'd love to see:
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| Optional questions - Professional Experience, Skills and Education | ||
| These questions are optional. Responses will count towards the total word limit on your application. (Reminder: You will not have other opportunities to provide this information). | ||
| Please describe your professional career experience and relevance to board work. | For 18.5 years I work in banking: risk and finance. I combine compliance, tech and quantitative areas, having served roles from analyst and datawarehouse administrator, through principal auditor and a national subject matter expert in legislative processes, to modeller, team manager and senior product owner. Currently I work as a director in a Polish chapter of a German subsidiary of Standard Chartered - a truly multinational banking institution.
My career taught me a plethora of relevant things, including:
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| Please describe how you handled, or advised others on, a complex problem in an organization. How did you work with others to address the situation? What was the change that resulted from your efforts? | Governing an organization like Wikimedia Polska is a neverending stream of complex problems - luckily evolving from very operational issues years ago to strategic decisions, compliance and organizational work with the ED and Board. This evolution from a small Board of volunteers doing great things but with own hands and on limited scale, to a resourced, stable organization with multiple programmatic areas, partnerships and apetite for more is my largest deed.
Looking for problems of other organizations, we need to remember that separation or roles may be crucial. To give an example: once in the FDC, after a short research we have identified a complex problem of an affiliate, involving its board, staff and volunteers. I am glad we were first to raise this issue, point out weaknesses and pass for further work by dedicated persons. I am happy to know we did it right, and the affiliate is in a far better condition than before. | |
| Please describe your educational background, including degrees, certificates, and courses of study finished, and their relevance to board work. | I have a Master's degree in a local equivalent of MORSE (Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Econometrics) in Economics of Warsaw School of Economics. There, basing on merit as well as family patience and financial sacrifice, I took my first opportunities of foreign exchanges. I made my certificate in Swedish in Helsinki, learned German in Uni Mainz in Germany - and, most importantly, was a visiting student/alumn of an exchange programme with MBA school - Anderson School of Management, UCLA - offered me generously cost free.
I also took my opportunity to take (free) parallel studies thanks to my performance. Thus, I also completed curricula of a Master in Psychology (University of Warsaw), and PhD studies in economics (WSoE). My banking role required many further specialized courses as well, from accounting to programming. | |
| Please add any relevant links describing your professional background, experience, profile (such as LinkedIn, staff page, etc.). | LinkedIn (yes, I hold this shortcut for ~20 years) | |
| Optional questions - Leadership Experience | ||
| These questions are optional. Responses will count towards the total word limit on your application. (Reminder: You will not have other opportunities to provide this information). | ||
| Please describe ways in which you have helped to form a bridge between multiple communities (such as by working on projects outside your home wiki, or working on a collaboration between multiple affiliates). | CEE Hub will be an example closest to my heart - where basing on sheer mutual trust and willingness to do great things together we started a fully grass-root, multilateral co-operation: firstly by learning from each other, than with CEE Spring, mutual help, and finally forming the hub, where Wikimedia Polska has a priviledge to serve as the fiscal sponsor. Now I am hoping the Cee Hub can share the lessons learned with the whole Movement. | |
| Can you describe a policy, on wiki or off, that you helped to create or change? What did you learn from this experience? | Changing the affiliate bylaws can be challenging but we can do it together if we listen to each other with good intentions. The same can be said about creating rules of self-policing, like implementing an Arbitration Committee on your local wiki, and setting its tone with first rulings. | |
| How have you been able to empower people to make their voices heard? | Every person is unique and has something to offer - however it needs to be composed and facilitated to not turn into a cacophony. Luckily these issues are given attention in global companies as well and according to my professional team's indicate, I seem to have succeeded here. | |
| Can you describe how you have demonstrated the ability to guide others in solving problems, adapting to change or achieving goals, particularly at a leadership or management level? | The latest change in Wikimedia Polska and a fairly smooth transition from one ED to another showed resilience and organizational growth, where everyone showed they knew their role and responsibilities. Achieving this requires 1000 steps. | |
| Optional questions - Strategic Thinking | ||
| These questions are optional. Responses will count towards the total word limit on your application. (Reminder: You will not have other opportunities to provide this information). | ||
| Please describe your experience participating in or leading an organization in planning for its future. How did your work contribute to picking the right path for the organization? | I described the development of Wikimedia Polska from a very small Wikimedia Chapter to a 11 FTE stable organization. It has been a success story so far, which does not mean we can sit on the laurels. Quite the contrary, we need to constantly rethink ourselves and invest in our future, and the task list is long. Having said that, one step at a time. We have a long journey to make with the Wikimedia Foundation and all of us - but we cannot forget to cherish and learn from our successes, and appreciate the great people.
Wikimedia Foundation is in a great position to make the change - and I am hoping I am a right person to join the BoT to do it. | |
| Verification | Identity verification performed by Wikimedia Foundation staff and eligibility verification performed by the Elections Committee | |
Eligibility:  Verified
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Identification: Verified Verified by: – NahidSultan (WMF) (talk) 05:02, 16 July 2025 (UTC) | |