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Tag: Gary Kovacs

  • Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs Stepping Down Later This Year

    In late 2010, Mozilla appointed Gary Kovacs as its CEO as the non-profit began development on Firefox OS. As the launch of Firefox OS nears, Mozilla is now once again on the lookout for a new CEO.

    Mozilla announced today that Kovacs will be stepping down as the CEO of the non-profit later this year. He won’t be gone entirely, however, as he plans to stick around as a member of the Board of Directors.

    “The past two and a half years have been pivotal in the evolution and rapid growth of Mozilla,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO. “I am very proud of our accomplishments as a team. In our mission to empower the next two billion Web users, we’ve made great advances in desktop and mobile and in our ability to lead at the pace of the market. With this solid foundation and a strong team in place, this is the right time for me to announce the transition plan and a vote of confidence in the abilities of the leadership team. I am grateful for the privilege of leading this organization during this period of rapid growth, and I look forward to helping guide Mozilla’s impact on the future of mobile.

    Kovacs stepping down isn’t the only executive change happening at Mozilla over the next few months. The non-profit also announced that Mitchell Baker and Brendan Eich have expanded their roles to Executive Chair and Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President of Engineering respectively.

    Jay Sullivan will be moving up from SVP of Products to the position COO. He will still be directly involved with Mozilla’s product strategy and the Firefox OS development team.

    Harvey Anderson, Corporate Secretary for Mozilla, is now also the SVP of Business and Legal Affairs. In the new role, he will “have oversight for the apps marketplace initiative and continue to lead mobile and strategic partnerships.”

    Finally, Li Gong is Mozilla’s SVP of Mobile Devices. As the title implies, he’ll be in charge of global Firefox OS adoption as the handsets featuring Mozilla’s mobile OS launches later this year.

    Over the next few months, Mozilla will be on the lookout for its next CEO. It will interesting to see who the non-profit ultimately ends up choosing as they will be in charge of Mozilla as it attempts to stake its claim in the ever growing mobile market.

  • Mozilla Introduces Gary Kovacs As New CEO

    There will soon be a new general (or even supreme commander) in the browser war.  Mozilla announced today that Gary Kovacs, who’s currently employed by SAP, will assume the title of "Mozilla CEO" starting November 8th.

    Kovacs has an impressive resume.  Aside from SAP, he’s worked at Sybase, Adobe, Macromedia, Zi Corporation, and IBM, meaning he’s familiar with lots of tech and the inner workings of companies large and small.

    Gary KovacsWhat’s more, Kovacs has the support of both John Lilly (Mozilla’s current CEO, who announced in May that he’d be resigning) and Mitchell Baker (Mozilla’s CEO before Lilly and longstanding chairperson).

    Lilly wrote in a blog post, "[Kovacs] understands that Mozilla is a unique organization, with unusual strengths and weaknesses, and really embraces that difference.  But he’s also ready and able to help us do more with what we’ve built, and deliver even more towards Mozilla’s mission of making the Web more participatory and more open."

    Mitchell agreed on a separate blog, "A number of people were involved in the search process.  We talked to a lot of people, and Gary stands out for the way he bridges these skill sets.  He melds the fundamentals of a good executive with a powerful understanding that Mozilla’s non-profit, public benefit mission drives everything we do . . ."

    For the record, no one representing Chrome or IE seems to have responded yet.