Ethereum Foundation revamps its leadership to sharpen focus

The Ethereum Foundation has overhauled its leadership to better separate management and board responsibilities. 

The announcement was made in an Apr. 28 blog post. Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak have been named co-executive directors under the new arrangement. They will work with Bastian Aue and Josh Stark, who are joining the management team with focus areas like organizational strategy and project execution.

The management team will handle day-to-day operations and strategic execution, while the board will focus on setting the long-term vision and ensuring compliance. 

The board includes four members. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s (ETH) co-founder, will offer “technical and intellectual guidance” to the ecosystem. Aya Miyaguchi, the Foundation’s president, will help shape its long-term vision and manage key external relationships. Patrick Storchenegger, a Swiss legal expert, will make sure the Foundation complies with Swiss regulations as a Swiss non-profit. 

In addition, Wang will also sit on the board and act as a liaison between the board’s decisions and daily operations. The board will serve as a “security council” to protect Ethereum’s core values and ensure that the Foundation’s operations remain consistent with its decentralized goal. The board also has the power to appoint or remove executive directors if needed.

Wang and Stańczak shared that their top priorities for the next year include scaling Ethereum’s layer-1, improving connections between layer-1 and layer-2 networks, and making the network easier to use for both developers and users.

They also reaffirmed a commitment to censorship resistance, open-source development, privacy, and security. Stańczak will serve a two-year term while continuing his work with Nethermind and a soon-to-be-launched Ethereum-focused venture fund.

The leadership changes coincide with calls from some Ethereum community members for the Foundation to play a bigger role, particularly in fields like decentralized finance. According to the Foundation, it is still dedicated to serving as a steward of the Ethereum ecosystem, supporting growth without taking on the role of a centralized authority.