1 November 2023, San Francisco – The Wikimedia Foundation, the global nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia, today announced that Kathy Collins will be joining its Board of Trustees – the board is composed of Wikimedia community volunteers and external experts to help guide the work of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Kathy brings over four decades of experience in governance, finance and audit. She has dedicated her career to non-profit, educational, and public institutions. Recently retired, Kathy spent 27 years at Rice University where she served as Budget Director and then as Vice President of Finance. In this executive role, she partnered with the President and Board of Trustees to steward the university’s strategic mission in an evolving and increasingly complex landscape of higher education. She directly managed the university’s budget, and led the controller’s office, internal audit, compliance and enterprise risk management, and, jointly with the University’s Provost, institutional research.
Kathy’s governance experience also includes a 10-year term on the board of trustees of Mount Holyoke College, where she was Vice Chair of the Board, Chair of the Finance Committee and member of the Audit, Governance and Development Committees, and the DEI Task Force.
Kathy spent her early career in government, first with the Illinois Bureau of the Budget, then as an analyst with the Office of Management & Budget, Executive Office of The President, and finally as Budget Director at the US Department of Transportation. She received a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and a Master’s Degree in City Planning from Harvard University.
“Kathy brings substantial financial expertise, and also a lifelong commitment to education throughout her career. She is experienced with the challenges of complex non-profits and managing multi-stakeholder environments. The Board is fortunate to have her joining us as a Trustee and as Audit Chair,” said Nataliia Tymkiv, Board Chair.
As an incoming trustee, Kathy will serve a three-year term starting at the December Board meeting held on December 6, 2023. She will replace outgoing Trustee Tanya Capuano, who is also the current Audit Chair. With Kathy’s appointment, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has 12 members: a Community Founder, six community-and-affiliate-selected Trustees, and five board-selected Trustees, one of whom is also a community member. They include Nataliia Tymkiv, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Esra’a Al Shafei, Raju Narisetti, Dariusz Jemelniak, Luis Bitencourt-Emilio, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, Victoria Doronina, Lorenzo Losa, Mike Peel, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
The Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation and its work, and serves as the organization’s ultimate governance body.
