Preparing For The Next Chapter

Gary Kovacs joined us in November of 2010 as the Mozilla Corporation’s third CEO. I was the first (2004-2008), and John Lilly the second (2008-2010). We’ve had two CEO transitions so far, and now we will have a third. Gary will step down as CEO later this year. He will remain a member of our board of directors. As we did before, we are making this announcement as we begin a search for a new CEO, rather than waiting until after we have identified one. This fits with Mozilla’s identity as a public benefit organization dedicated to openness and participation in Internet life.

Each of Mozilla Corporation’s CEOs has brought our particular skills and expertise to an important era of Mozilla and Firefox development. I led during the start-up/underdog phase and the transition into an industry success with a strong open source and public benefit core. John’s leadership helped us solidify that success, grow to a couple of hundred people (huge by our standards then) and extend our reach in ways we hadn’t imagined.