User:Mhalprin

I have enjoyed Wikipedia as a reader for for several years. I was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in August, 2009 and was re-appointed this past December to a two-year term. I serve on the board generally and participate heavily in two areas:


 * Board Governance. I serve as Chair of the Board Governance Committee and have been working with two fellow committee members to improve our Board's practices to make us more effective.  Please see our current board manual for a further description of WMF's board responsibilities and practices.  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_board_manual.  I was drawn to the Board Governance Committee work as through my career in strategy work and from my work on other boards I have found that setting key operating principles and procedures are essential to achieving goals.  Also, since I am not an active editor like many of my fellow trustees, this work has given me a way to contribute that draws upon my prior experience.


 * Controversial Content. I serve on a board working group that is working on the "Controversial Content" issue on behalf of the board.  Controversial Content includes images of violence, nudity/sexuality, etc.  At eBay, I was responsible for all of our policies governing marketplace trading around the world for five years.  I find these issues fascinating - both in principle and in practice.  Finding balance between divergent cultures and interests is a huge challenge.  Further, as a father of four kids, I am sensitive to the varying ability of a child to understand and not be shocked by controversial content at different ages.

Professionally, I currently am EVP, Strategy and Corporate Development at Ning, a Marc Andreessen founded company that provides a global platform for the creation of custom, social networks. My LinkedIn profile is here http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-halprin/4/791/490.

I am a devoted father to four kids and husband to a wonderful wife. I enjoy basketball (played seriously in high school and college) and still try to play twice a week.

I have served on a number of boards prior to joining the Wikimedia Foundation's board, both for-profit and non-profit. For 10 years I have served on the Board of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (http://www.ml4t.org/). MLT equips high potential US minority students with tools to succeed in business, including getting into business school. As of 2010, 30-40% of minorities in top US business schools come from MLT. MLT was founded and is run by a close personal friend and is having huge impact on changing the face of our top business schools and, slowly, American business. I was drawn to it because it levels the playing field by giving talented minorities the soft advantages I received growing up from my parents, college friends and colleagues.

I have traveled extensively and like to consider myself a citizen of the world in addition to a citizen of the U.S. Countries I have visited include: Japan (lived there), China, Korea (my wife is of Korean heritage), Thailand, India, Kenya, Ghana, UK, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Poland (Wikimania 2010), Argentina (Wikimania 2009), Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Canada. I have also been to 45 of the 50 states in the US.

Contact: mhalprin@wikimedia.org