Towards the end of April this year (2023), I joined the Confidential Computing Consortium as the Executive Director, and I thought it might be interesting to reflect on what that means. I’ve been involved with the CCC since its foundation in October 2019: in fact, I was one of those who helped shape it and move it to foundation from its inception a few months earlier. I have, at various times, acted as the Red Hat (Premier Member) representative on the Governing Board, project representative for Enarx, Treasurer, member as part of Profian, and General Member representative before a brief period of a couple of months as we closed down Profian where I wasn’t involved. I’ve spoken for the CCC at conferences, staffed booths, written blog posts, contributed to white papers, helped commission a market report, recruit members and pretty much everything else that is involved in a Linux Foundation project. It’s been a fairly large part of my professional life for approaching four years.
So I was very happy to be invited to become invited to apply to be Executive Director, a position that had been mooted while I was still involved in the consortium, but which I’d had no expectation of being approached about. But what does an Executive Director do? I don’t see any reason not to share a cut-down version of the role description as per the contract (redacted just for brevity, and not any reasons of confidentiality):
- Attending events, speaking, providing booth presence, etc.
- Blogging as appropriate, participating in podcasts, etc. to raise awareness about the CCC and its mission.
- Engage premier and general members to encourage involvement and solicit feedback, helping the governing board set goals and milestones if appropriate, and generally taking the pulse of the organization from the members’ perspective.
- Recruit new membership from relevant organizations.
- Recruit new projects to the CCC.
- Attend Governing Board meetings and report on work to date and plans for the next period. Report out via simple slides for the governing board presentation.
This is a short but very broad brief and it raises the question: does an Executive Director direct things (are they foremost a manager?) or execute things (are they foremost a task performer?)?
The answer, of course, will vary from organisation to organisation and I know that is true even between the Executive Directors for different Linux Foundation projects, but for me, it’s a (sometimes uneasy) “both”. Member organisations are both blessed and plagued by the fact that, to start with, nothing gets done unless members’ employees do it. They need to arrange meetings, organise conference attendance, manage webinars, write white papers and all the rest. They may get some implementation help for some of these (the Linux Foundation, for example, has a number of functions which can provide help for particular specialist functions like marketing, research or project management), but most of it is run by the members and their employees. And then they get to the stage where they decide that they need some help at a senior level.
What does that person do? Well, here are some words that I think of when I consider my role:
- support
- chivy
- encourage
- recruit
- explain
- advertise
- represent
- engage
- report
You’ll note that some of these are words that are about working with people or members (e.g. support, engage, encourage), whereas others are more about doing things (e.g. advertise, explain, represent). The former feel more like the “directing” part of the role and the latter feel more like the “executing” part of the role. Obviously, they’re not mutually incompatible, and some of the words can lean in both directions, which makes it even more clear to me that it’s hybrid role that I’m fulfilling.
Given my hybrid background (as a techie with business experience), this feels appropriate, and I need to keep ensuring that I balance the time I spend on different activities carefully: I can neither spend all my time on making technical comments on a draft report on GRC (governance, risk management and compliance) nor on considering recruitment options for new members in the Asia Pacific region. But at the same time, it feels sensible that, as someone tasked with having an overview of the organisation, I keep at least some involvement (or knowledge of) all the major moving parts.
It doesn’t change the fact, however, that things only really get done when members get involved, too. This is one of those areas where it’s entirely clear to me that I can only execute tasks to a certain level: this has to be a collaborative role, which frankly suits me and my management style very well. The extent to which I keep an eye on most things, and the balance of work between me, members and other functions of the organisation are likely to change as we continue to grow, but for now, I’m very much enjoying the work I’m doing (and the interactions with the people I’m doing it with) and juggling the balance of executing versus direction.
Alice, Eve and Bob - a security blog 