Chris Beard a former Chief Marketing Officer is Mozilla interim Chief Executive Officer. This comes when one of the world’s most used browser Firefox is in recovery phase as their former CEO Brendan Eich resigned around 2 weeks ago after it was revealed that he donated an amount of $1000 to Proposition 8,the California constitutional amendment that disallowed the marriage of same-sex couples.Chris is now also a board member by Mozilla.
Chris Beard has been working for Mozilla for years and has made major contribution to the company . He handled the Firefox 1.0 launch in 2004, Firefox for android and the Firefox OS mobile Operating system.
In the blog post, Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s Executive Chairwoman said,
“In this time of transition there is no better person to lead us. Chris has one of the clearest visions of how to take the Mozilla mission and turn it into programs and activities and product ideas that I have ever seen. In the early years at Mozilla he was responsible for leading the Mozilla product, marketing and innovation teams. More recently, Chris was our CMO, leading user, developer and community engagement activities globally, including the initial launches of Firefox on Android and Firefox OS at MWC.”
Mozilla was wounded by Brendan after he donated 1000 dollars in 2008 to anti gay marriage Proposition 8. With recent controversy ,firestorm erupted and Eich gave the resignation roughly 2 weeks ago. Meanwhile Mozilla announced the search for their new permanent CEO. Baker said that their new CEO could be an Outsider .
“We intend to use recent events as a catalyst to develop and expand Mozilla’s leadership. Appointing Chris as our interim CEO is a first step in this process,” Baker said. “Next steps include a long-term plan for the CEO role, adding board members who can help Mozilla succeed and continuing our efforts to actively support each Mozillian to reach his or her full potential as a leader.”
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