Vitalik and new Ethereum Foundation co-executive directors outline updated board structure, mission

The Ethereum Foundation revealed its new management and board structure in a forum post published on Monday. The announcement formalizes the appointment of the two new Co-Executive Directors, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak, as part of a new structure “designed to ensure our vision, strategic and balanced execution, technical direction, and ecosystem development.”

“Tomasz and Hsiao-Wei Wang’s appointments as Co-EDs are an unconventional decision, but one that allows them to complement one another at a busy time for the Ethereum ecosystem and EF alike,” the foundation wrote.

The decision to replace former EF Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi and shake up the organization was made after a period of intense community pushback against the foundation’s lack of transparency and amid fears that Ethereum was losing its edge by not taking a more competitive approach.

As previously reported, former Miyaguchi is stepping into a new role as president. Miyaguchi faced particular criticism over her oversight of the organization, with many calling to be replaced with a more technical and experienced Ethereum developer.

Stańczak is expected to stay in the role for two years and will continue to remain involved in his existing efforts, including blockchain infrastructure firm Nethermind. It is unclear whether Hsiao-Wei has the same terms, however, she will “serve as a bridge between the board and management.”

Over the next 12 months, Stańczak and Hsiao-Wei will focus on scaling Ethereum mainnet and blobs, the transaction storage system, as well as pushing UX improvements, including at the Layer 2 interoperability and application layers.

“Together, that means improving mainnet and L2s interoperability and coordination, UX, DevEx, giving applications and L2s more presence and attention at Devcon, amplifying their messages via communication channels,” they write. 

In addition, both note that they are looking to better support Ethereum’s application layer and developer ecosystem. “We understand that we need to accelerate journeys of developers, founders, institutions through the pathways towards building on Ethereum and adopting Ethereum,” they write.

Additional board members

Longtime Ethereum representatives Josh Stark and Bastian Aue are also named as board “co-stewards.” Aue will focus on foundation hiring and training while Stark, former head of operations and legal at Ledger Labs, will focus on project execution, communications, and marketing.

“The EF board is like a security council to protect the heart and soul of EF, and to ensure compliance as a Swiss foundation. The board sets the vision, oversees that the high-level strategies and decisions by management are aligned with the Foundation’s values,” the foundation writes.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is a member of the board, though he has an undefined position of continuing “to provide technical and intellectual guidance to the broader Ethereum ecosystem.” In a blog co-written with Miyaguchi, Buterin noted going forward the EF will be particularly focused on gaining new users and maximizing “the resilience of Ethereum’s technical and social infrastructure.”

Buterin and Miyaguchi note that increasing the “meaningful usage” of the second-largest blockchain should “benefit from Ethereum’s underlying values” of censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security.

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