Thank you to all who voted in the 2019 election for representatives to the OpenID Foundation Board of Directors. Per our bylaws, three individual community board members are elected.  The term of George Fletcher has an additional year remaining on his 2-year term. I want to thank George for his continued service.

Mike Jones’ and John Bradley’s terms as community board representative two-year terms ended in 2018. Thus two board seats were up for election. Nat Sakimura and John Bradley were nominated for the next two-year term. Both were elected and their continued leadership ensures continuity on important initiatives like the upgrades to Libraries and the expansion of the Certification Programs to include Financial-Grade API self -certification.

Each year Corporate members of the OpenID Foundation elect a member to represent them on the board. Ashish Jain, formerly of VMware, was the corporate board representative until he moved to eBay to lead its identity team. Dale Olds, Principal Engineer and Platform Identity Architect at VMware, replaced Ashish for the remainder of last year's term.

I was among the many who were glad Dale stepped up to continue representing corporate members. As Dale was the sole nomination, he won by acclamation. Thank you to those Corporate members who inquired about the opportunity to serve the Foundation board and their vote of confidence in Dale’s leadership.

There are two other changes report. First, I’d like to note a change in Microsoft’s board representation. Mike Jones will be Microsoft’s board representative in 2019, with Tony Nadalin continuing to serve as Microsoft’s designated alternate. Second, Shibata Takehisa is replacing Nat Sakimura as NRI’s sustaining member representative. Like Nat, Takehisa is a both technical domain expert and an industry opinion leader. Like Nat he has been key to the expanding contributions of our colleagues in the OIDF Japan Chapter.

These changes give me a chance to thank Tony, Mike, and Nat for their long-standing leadership and acknowledge their profound impact to the Foundation over the years. Thanks to all for their continued service.

Finally, I want to acknowledge all those who put themselves forward as candidates as well as those now serving. Board participation is a substantial investment of time and energy and requires diligent consensus building. Please join me in thanking Nat, John, and Dale as well as the other Directors for their service to the OpenID Foundation and the community at large.

Don Thibeau
Executive Director
OpenID Foundation