CEA update, March 2019

In summary: A committee has been formed to find CEA’s next CEO. All of our teams are currently focused on gathering user feedback and improving execution. You can apply now to attend EA Global: San Francisco and EAGx Nordics.

Update on the CEO search

CEA’s Trustees have appointed a committee to search for a new CEO, following the departure of our previous CEO, Larissa Hesketh-Rowe. The committee currently consists of Owen Cotton-Barratt, Julia Wise, Will MacAskill, Nick Beckstead, and Jenna Peters, with Owen leading the search and Jenna serving as the project manager. Right now, they’re working on setting up the search process, consulting people with additional executive experience, and creating a list of potential candidates.

If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions to share with the committee, please email ceosearch@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.

Our goals for the interim period

We don’t plan to make any major changes to CEA’s strategy during the interim period, because we want to give the new CEO the freedom to set their own priorities. We are therefore currently focusing on executing well on our current projects and commitments so that the new CEO is able to focus on strategic vision.

Here are some updates on what everyone at CEA has been working on:

Managers

• Developing scoreboards to track progress on our projects
• Working to improve the way we give feedback, especially by increasing its frequency and regularity

Teams

• All teams have been collecting feedback from community members involved in our various projects (e.g., the leaders of EA groups we advise, speakers at EA Global, and top contributors on the EA Forum). Staff have created detailed notes on more than 120 user conversations since the beginning of February.
• The Community Health team is working to systematize Julia Wise’s work and onboard Sky Mayhew, our new Community Liaison.
• The Events team is focusing on EA Global, with a particular focus on facilitating high-value 1-on-1 conversations at the event.
• The Groups team is assessing applications for Community Building Grants.
• For Grants, Nicole Ross is working to improve operations, fix problems from previous rounds, and write up internal assessments of recent applications.

General updates

• You can now read archived editions of the EA Groups Newsletter online.
• To encourage the development and sharing of good ideas, we’ve begun to award monthly cash prizes for excellent posts on the EA Forum. You can see February's winners, and links to winners from previous months, here.