Board Meeting Minutes, May 2016
A meeting of the Open Knowledge International (OKI) Board was held in London and virtually via Hangout on 11th May, 2016.
Present: Karin Christiansen (KC) - Chair, Jane Silber (JS) and Helen Turvey (HT)
Observing: Pavel Richter (PR), Mark Gibbs (MG) - via Hangout; Sander van der Waal (SvdW) (part), Sebastian Moleski (SM) (part), Naomi Lillie (NL) (minutes)
Apologies: Tim Hubbard (TH)
Review of minutes & actions of last meeting
The Minutes of the last meeting were reviewed and approved in principle, with an action for KC and NL to follow up regarding the level of detail to be shared publicly. Actions were reviewed and updated.
Viderum Budget proposal
The Viderum Budget proposal was accepted. A business plan for Viderum is to be shared with the OKI board, addressing the following: sales staffing and approach; cash-flow plans and mitigation strategies eliminating/minimizing OKI’s exposure; road to scalability and self-sufficiency. The Board committed to send feedback on Viderum mission statement to SM.
CEO Update
PR issued an update, including hiring of Portfolio Managers, development of the Theory of Change for the organization, fundraising, rebranding to ‘Open Knowledge International’, and the President’s role.
COO Update including Financial Update
MG presented an update on his findings and actions to date, which included: employee benefits and compensation, skills assessment, and planning the implementation of a pension scheme by the end of 2016; improvements of financial systems, and the plan for OKI to have a short financial year (June 2016 to December 2016), followed by a financial year in 2017 that is in sync with the calendar year; the introduction of Open Pizza - a monthly open chat session over lunch.
Viderum Update
SM gave an update which included: more work was needed than expectations set, in terms of sales process, business opportunity and product development; Arturas Verbickas moved from being an OKI employee to Viderum employee on April 1st, and other OKI staffers continue to support Viderum as well as Rufus Pollock; diversity of workforce to be addressed; thoughts around platforms for hosting and fundraising; and the financials are requiring more of SM’s time than expected meaning business development is slower than hoped.
The Board, PR and SM discussed different aspects of the future business and funding model of Viderum.
The Board asked about hiring plans, SM’s outlook for Viderum, and noted that CEO / Viderum is required to present a mid-term financial outlook (1yr & 2yr horizon) with regular updates.
Projects Update
SvdW gave an overview of the state of our current projects. The board commented on different aspects of the projects and advised SvdW and PR.
CEO Performance Assessment paper
The proposed paper of targets and measures was agreed.
Board Function and composition
KC and PR presented suggestions for Board composition, which was discussed. HT suggested a central repository for all agreed action items, to make it easier for the Board to track its own tasks and those of PR.
- AGREED: The Board accepts decisions and suggestions by KC / PR that are circulated unless objections are raised or questions asked.
AOB
Meeting schedules were discussed.