Today we are inviting nominations for two seats on the Zcash Foundation (ZF) Board of Directors.
ZF is governed by a six-person board of directors, consisting of five independent directors and the executive director. While the board is self-electing, it seeks input from the Zcash community (represented by an advisory poll of ZCAP) regarding who should be appointed to the Board.
Andrew Miller’s board term expires this year. Andrew is an adjunct associate professor and director of the Decentralized Systems Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an associate director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3). Andrew has been involved in the Zcash project since early 2016, first as an advisor to the Electric Coin Company, and then as a founding director (and current board chair) of the Zcash Foundation. The board has decided to reappoint Andrew to the board so we can continue to benefit from his extensive experience and expertise.
Amber Baldet has served as a ZF board member since 2018. Amber first became involved in Zcash in 2017, when she was instrumental in establishing the partnership between JP Morgan and ECC to integrate Zcash-based privacy into the Quorum enterprise blockchain platform. Amber left JP Morgan in 2018 to found Clovyr, a platform that makes it easier for developers to contribute to open source apps and simple for anyone to run them. Last year, Amber became one of the founding board members of the Financial Privacy Foundation. She is now stepping down from the ZF board in order to focus solely on FPF.
Peter Van Valkenburgh is a founding director of the Zcash Foundation, and drafted the Foundation’s successful application to be recognized as a 501(c)(3). A former Google Policy Fellow for TechFreedom and a graduate of the NYU School of Law, Peter is currently the Director of Research at Coin Center. However, from January, he will be taking up a new role as Executive Director of Coin Center. Sadly, this means that he is stepping down from the ZF Board.
On behalf of everyone at the Zcash Foundation, and the broader Zcash community, we want to thank Amber and Peter for their service, advice and guidance in support of the Zcash Foundation and its mission. They will be sorely missed.
We invite members of the Zcash community to nominate individuals they believe would be good candidates to replace Amber and Peter on the ZF board. Nominations should be made on the Zcash Community Forums, under the Governance category, in the form of a new topic titled “X for the ZF Board”. People may (and are encouraged to) nominate themselves.
Nominees must explicitly accept the nomination, and should post some information about themselves, and why they would be a good board member.
Community nominations must be submitted by 09:00 UTC on Monday 18th November 2024.
We plan to schedule a community call to allow nominees to introduce themselves and answer questions from the Zcash community. We will then conduct an advisory poll of ZCAP, and the Board will take the results of that poll into account when deciding who to appoint to the board.
Being on the Zcash Foundation Board: Duties and Expectations
Members of the ZF board share fiduciary responsibility for ZF, acting as trustees of its assets, and ensuring that ZF is well-managed, and remains financially sound.
In practice, these responsibilities can be summarized as:
- hiring, firing and supervising the Executive Director (ED),
- providing guidance and advice to the ED, and
- having bold visions about the Foundation’s mission and future, and working with the ED to assist him execute on them.
Membership on the ZF Board is an unpaid position, as is the norm for 501(c)(3) boards. The expected time commitment is one 60-90 minute meeting (conducted by video call) each month, and regular email and Signal communication.
Board members cannot be anonymous or pseudonymous. They are required to undergo the Foundation’s KYC process, complete an annual conflict of interest declaration, and their name will be published as part of ZF’s annual Form 990.