Archive:Press releases/Wikimedia Foundation welcomes Boryana Dineva as Vice President of Human Resources

Wikimedia Foundation welcomes Boryana Dineva as Vice President of Human Resources

Experienced tech executive steps into newly created role

The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce that Boryana Dineva has joined the organization as Vice President of Human Resources. In this role, Boryana will lead development, recruiting, and support for Wikimedia Foundation staff in support of the Wikimedia mission.

As of 2015, the Wikimedia Foundation has grown to around 200 employees, supporting a community of around 80,000 active Wikipedia and Wikimedia contributors and a global readership of nearly 500 million people per month. Every Foundation employee currently supports nearly 2.5 million Wikimedia users, and with a mission to engage every single human on the planet in the sum of all knowledge we have billions more people to reach. Human Resources is a critical partner in building a team of talented, passionate people to support this ambitious mission.

Boryana joins the Wikimedia Foundation from Tesla Motors, where she led the Human Resources Analytics, Information Systems, and Operation groups. At Tesla, Boryana worked in close partnership with staff and management to design and develop programs to advance strategy and achieve organizational goals. She was instrumental in building the company’s people analytics capacity and developing a data-driven organizational design to support growth.

Boryana believes that a strong and purposeful culture is essential for an organization to be truly transformative, particularly for mission-driven organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation. “Culture is the sum of the actions of each individual,” Boryana said. “Each employee can be a partner in creating a fulfilling and inspiring work environment. I’m thrilled to be joining the Wikimedia Foundation for the opportunity to advance an organizational culture rooted in the Wikimedia values of transparency, stewardship, and openness.”

As Vice President of Human Resources, Boryana will oversee the Wikimedia Foundation’s talent and culture function, including talent acquisition, organizational training and development, and talent management and people analytics. She will design and drive initiatives around workplace culture and well-being, including diversity, respect, and implement new processes and tools to support Foundation staff and stewardship. Boryana will report to Wikimedia Foundation Chief Operating Officer Terence Gilbey.

“Boryana has the right combination of experience and sensibility to help the organization do what we do best: support the Wikimedia free knowledge mission,” said Gilbey. “I look forward to working with her as she gets to know the Wikimedia world and starts to build creative, mission-aligned strategies to help us achieve our goals.”

Boryana has a degree in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Outside of work, she has been described as a global nomad. She was born and lived in Bulgaria, and has lived and studied in Russia, Austria, Germany, and the United States. She is a student of people and cultures, an area she relies on when defining organizational strategy.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia consists of more than 35 million articles in 291 languages. Every month, tens of thousands of active volunteers contribute to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. With nearly half a billion monthly users, projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation are one of the most popular web properties in the world. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.

Press Contacts

Katherine Maher
The Wikimedia Foundation
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633
presswikimedia.org