John’s Blog

I’m very happy to introduce Gary Kovacs as our new CEO for the Mozilla Corporation. I think he’s going to be great for Mozilla, and that our broad community will like him and be well served by him.

This introduction is the culmination of a search process that’s taken us about six months — we were quite broad in our search, as we knew it would be tough to find someone who could blend technology leadership and operational excellence with an ability to understand what’s special about how Mozilla works, and who could really help develop the whole organization.

We’ve talked with many people through this process — most of them were exceptionally talented in many ways. But Gary’s a special person for the CEO role, and here’s why:

• He’s a veteran of the Web and rich media — he’s been at the center of several cycles at Macromedia/Adobe and recently Sybase/SAP
• He’s got a deep background in mobile over the last 5 years or so — that’s an incredibly important area where we’ve got a lot to prove in the coming years
• He’s been involved in changing big organizations, and with those organizations changing the bigger landscape — Macromedia, Adobe & Sybase

So he’s got deep background in the battlefields that will define the future of the Open Web: mobile and rich media, and he’s been involved in building great organizations several times over.

But beyond all that, it’s his personality and humanity that really made us feel like he’d be a great fit for Mozilla. He’s a great communicator and a great listener. He understands that Mozilla is a unique organization, with unusual strengths and weaknesses, and really embraces that difference. But he’s also ready and able to help us do more with what we’ve built, and deliver even more towards Mozilla’s mission of making the Web more participatory and more open.

Please join me in welcoming Gary to the global Mozilla community.