Longtime Mozilla board member Bob Lisbonne moves from Foundation to Corporate Board; Outgoing CEO Chris Beard Corporate Board Term Ends

Today, Mozilla Co-Founder and Chairwoman Mitchell Baker announced that Mozilla Foundation Board member Bob Lisbonne has moved to the Mozilla Corporation Board; and as part of a planned, phased transition, Mozilla Corporation’s departing CEO Chris Beard has stepped down from his role as a Mozilla Corporation board member.

“We are in debt to Chris for his myriad contributions to Mozilla,” said Mozilla Chairwoman and Co-Founder Mitchell Baker. “We’re fortunate to have Bob make this shift at a time when his expertise is so well matched for Mozilla Corporation’s current needs.”

Bob has been a member of the Mozilla Foundation Board since 2006, but his contributions to the organization began with Mozilla’s founding. Bob played an important role in converting the earlier Netscape code into open source code and was part of the team that launched the Mozilla project in 1998.

“I’m incredibly fortunate to have been involved with Mozilla for over two decades,” said Bob Lisbonne. “Creating awesome products and services that advance the Mozilla mission remains as important as ever. In this new role, I’m eager to contribute my expertise and help advance the Internet as a global public resource, open and accessible to all.”

During his tenure on the Mozilla Foundation board, Bob has been a significant creative force in building both the Foundation’s programs — in particular the programs that led to MozFest — and the strength of the board. As he moves to the Mozilla Corporation Board, Bob will join the other Mozilla Corporation Board members in selecting, onboarding, and supporting a new CEO for Mozilla Corporation. Bob’s experience across innovation, investment, strategy and execution in the startup and technology arenas are particularly well suited to Mozilla Corporation’s setting.

Bob’s technology career spans 25 years, during which he played key roles as entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and executive. He was CEO of internet startup Luminate, and a General Partner with Matrix Partners. He has served on the Boards of companies which IPO’ed and were acquired by Cisco, HP, IBM, and Yahoo, among others. For the last five years, Bob has been teaching at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

With Bob’s move and Chris’ departure, the Mozilla Corporation board will include: Mitchell Baker, Karim Lakhani, Julie Hanna, and Bob Lisbonne. The remaining Mozilla Foundation board members are: Mitchell Baker, Brian Behlendorf, Ronaldo Lemos, Helen Turvey, Nicole Wong and Mohamed Nanabhay.

The Mozilla Foundation board will begin taking steps to fill the vacancy created by Bob’s move. At the same time, the Mozilla Corporation board’s efforts to expand its make-up will continue.

Founded as a community open source project in 1998, Mozilla currently consists of two organizations: the 501(c)3 Mozilla Foundation, which backs emerging leaders and mobilizes citizens to create a global movement for the health of the internet; and its wholly owned subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation, which creates products, advances public policy and explores new technologies that give people more control over their lives online, and shapes the future of the internet platform for the public good. Each is governed by a separate board of directors. The two organizations work in concert with each other and a global community of tens of thousands of volunteers under the single banner: Mozilla.
Because of its unique structure, Mozilla stands apart from its peers in the technology and social enterprise sectors globally as one of the most impactful and successful social enterprises in the world.