The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has appointed Bernadette Meehan as the new CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. She will officially join on January 20, 2026. Current CEO Maryana Iskander will stay in her role until then for a seamless handoff.

Bernadette has spent her career in roles dedicated to mission driven and public service work. Most recently, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Chile from 2022-2025. Prior to her ambassadorship, she served as Executive Vice President for Global Programs at the Obama Foundation, where she designed and led international leadership programs spanning Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and South Asia. Throughout her career, Bernadette has prioritized community engagement and collaboration. You can read more about her background below and the announcement to the media here.

Bernadette joins the Foundation at an important moment, on the cusp of Wikipedia’s 25th birthday. The world is facing unprecedented social, technological, regulatory and generational shifts. How people search and find information is being transformed. As Wikipedia’s influence has grown, so too has the importance of ensuring that people and decision makers understand its model and contribute to its future. Now more than ever, we need to increase awareness about the Wikimedia projects, and Bernadette will be the right leader to guide the Foundation in this new era.

Learn more about Bernadette in her own words:

Hi! Hola! Marhaba!

I’m awed by the brilliance and audacity of the Wikimedia Projects, and humbled and privileged to become part of this movement.

Over the past months, I’ve begun to learn about your work, communities, challenges, and—most importantly—the impact you make. My path to this moment has been a bit unconventional, but I’ve found deep alignment with the ethos, mission, and values of the Wikimedia Foundation. I’d like to share a bit about what led me to you.

I was born in the Bronx (where my father and my grandparents grew up) and raised in Pleasantville, New York. At 16 I moved to Rio Gallegos, Argentina as a high school exchange student. I learned a new language and opened my eyes to new perspectives (Joaquín Torres García’s América Invertida* *drawing was transformative for me). More than 30 years later, my Argentine host family is still a treasured part of my life, and my Spanish carries the distinctive Argentine accent.

I graduated from Boston College and worked at J.P. Morgan, helping design one of its first web-based client platforms. Drawn to public service, I initiated a new chapter of my life by joining the Department of State in 2004. As a Foreign Service Officer I learned from people with different political, cultural, and ideological perspectives. I had postings in Colombia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, and also served in a variety of roles in Washington, D.C. at the Department of State and the White House National Security Council (NSC). I studied Arabic, learning العربية الفصحى*, *which elicits good natured laughs when I try to use it on the streets of Cairo. Sometimes we get cynical as we move through the world, and it’s important to try to come back to optimism. That’s why I stepped away from a senior NSC role to teach classes at Georgetown University for a year. Being around students renewed my energy, sense of purpose, and belief that we constantly need new ideas to improve the world.

In 2017 I helped President and Mrs. Obama as they launched the Obama Foundation with the mission of helping people build a world with more opportunity, participation, and trust. I led the design of leadership development programs across Africa, Asia-Pacific, South Asia, Europe, and Latin America, for leaders in the public sector, civil society, and the private sector who demonstrated a commitment to advancing the common good. I saw first hand how individuals connected by shared principles can create tangible, collective, lasting impact.

In 2022 I returned to public service as U.S. Ambassador to Chile, a country I first visited as a 17-year-old. I couldn’t have dreamed during that visit that I would return 30 years later as the U.S. Ambassador. Leading a large embassy taught me invaluable lessons: disagreement is not failure; open-mindedness is a strength; facts, data, and transparency build trust; respectful debate is possible – and healthy – when grounded in reliable sources; name calling is mean and unproductive; bitterness is corrosive; process matters; and collaboration leads to better outcomes.

Some of my proudest accomplishments have been partnerships forged across differences, but grounded in shared purpose and common understanding. I’d like to highlight three projects I supported that, in many ways, echo the spirit of your own work.

1. The Humboldt Cable, the first subsea cable to connect South America with Asia, which is poised to transform digital connectivity.
2. Astronomical initiatives such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)—currently the world’s most powerful radio telescope—the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, and the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will become the largest public-private science project in history once completed. These efforts unite international partners in the pursuit of expanding humanity’s understanding of the universe.
3. The declassification and translation into Spanish of U.S. Government documents related to events in Chile from 1968 to 1991. As part of a broader commitment to transparency, one of the primary goals was to ensure Chileans had direct access to information about their own history, empowering them to form informed views about what took place.

Above all, my greatest joy as Ambassador came from meeting people and listening to their stories and experiences, from fishing villages along the Pacific coast to the halls of Congress to sheep farms in Patagonia to mining towns to indigenous communities in the Atacama desert, Araucanía, and Tierra del Fuego.

Every step of my journey has taught me new skills and challenged me in unexpected ways. Each chapter has shaped who I am and how I engage with the world, fostering curiosity, innovation, resilience, kindness, and humility. The greatest reward of my career has been growing alongside extraordinary teams, serving as both a leader and a learner.

Like many people, I’ve long been an avid reader of Wikipedia, though never an editor. The more I’ve learned about the Wikimedia projects, the more I’ve come to appreciate our shared commitments: mission-driven work, engaging diverse stakeholders, tackling complex challenges, cultivating curiosity and optimism, and the belief that principles guide not just what we do, but how we do it. That’s why I’m genuinely excited to join the Foundation.

I’m inspired by the commitment, creativity, joy, and resilience of this community. In 2026, as Wikipedia turns 25, we will celebrate over 65 million articles across 300+ languages, written, edited, and fact checked by nearly 250,000 people, all volunteers from around the world…all of you!

As we enter this moment full of possibility, we also face large, complex challenges. In an AI era, human knowledge, trust, transparency, a neutral point of view, and collaboration matter more than ever. You are the world’s eyes and ears, witnesses to history and stewards of memory. What an extraordinary responsibility, and what an extraordinary calling, to continually try to improve these projects!

Together, I hope we can be bold, take risks, have fun, and continue shaping a shared vision for the future. I’m committed to leading the Foundation with transparency, integrity, optimism, and respect for the model of volunteer-driven governance. As I step into this role, my focus is clear: to listen, learn, and empower people to do their best work. I’m grateful to Maryana for sharing her knowledge and for her dedication to a smooth and thoughtful transition.

Starting January 20, I’ll be coming to a meeting near you around the puzzle globe – online and in person with Wiki communities and affiliates, Foundation staff, and other partners. To guide our early conversations, I’d love to know:

1. What brought you to this movement?
2. How do we stay relevant over the next 25 years?
3. What three Wiki resources should I read first?

You know your communities best, and your insights will guide my path forward.

Twenty-five years ago, Wikipedia was just a dream. Today, it is the backbone of knowledge on the internet. Empowerment. Opportunity. Collaboration. Consensus. Hope.

Thank you for welcoming me. I look forward to getting to know each of you and building our future together.

Saludos, Bernadette

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