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Tech company Mozilla, most known for its Firefox internet browser, is adding four members to the board of its parent organization, the Mozilla Foundation.
The new board members are Raffi Krikorian, CTO at the Emerson Collective, a social impact firm that owns media properties like The Atlantic, and also focuses on education, the environment, immigration, and social justice issues; Alondra Nelson, professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Edwin Macharia, former managing director at Dalberg Advisors, an impact-focused consulting firm, who recently launched Axum, “an Afrocentric impact firm dedicated to fostering climate-positive and inclusive growth across Africa and Middle East regions”; and Zain Habboo, chief marketing officer at the International Rescue Committee.
Aside from its browser, Mozilla is best known for decades of advocacy in support of an open internet. Now seeing AI as the technology that will reshape the world, the foundation emphasized expertise in AI and experience working with the communities that will be impacted by it when interviewing and selecting new board members, says Surman. Nelson, for instance, was a co-architect of the Biden administration’s recently released Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, which outlines principles for promoting transparency, privacy, and racial and social equity in AI.
The company’s new board members stand in stark contrast with those of fellow tech company OpenAI, who were introduced last week in the wake of CEO Sam Altman’s sudden ousting and subsequent rehiring. All three board members at OpenAI are now white and male, though the company is likely to add more people.
For a young, forward-looking, and self-proclaimed purpose-driven company like OpenAI to begin anew without a diverse board was seen as both a setback and a symptom of lingering biases in Silicon Valley. Building a diverse board is now considered a bare minimum requirement for companies that want their corporate directors to make the best possible, most informed and inclusive decisions, and board diversity is widely accepted as a key driver of company performance. OpenAI may also find it difficult to recruit new members; several top women in AI recently told Wired that they would not join the OpenAI board if asked, fearing their presence would be a sign of tokenism.
In its six-month search for new directors, Mozilla made diversity of all kinds “a huge priority,” Mark Surman, president of the company, told Fortune. “We don’t think you can have a public institution like this without having a board that represents all kinds of dimensions of diversity.” OpenAI, he notes, claimed that it wanted a board that was going to ensure that AI is developed in service of all people, but put forth a board that represents “the tiniest possible slice of humanity.”
To be sure, recruiting diverse tech experts is only a first step and could be seen as largely performative if the Mozilla board fails to create a democratic and inclusive culture.
With its new board choices, Mozilla is also positioning itself as a model of a company that has successfully balanced social and market interests in pursuit of its mission to maintain open access to the internet. The Mozilla Foundation has a board, but so does the for-profit Mozilla Corporation, which oversees products like the Firefox browser and the save-for-later reading app Pocket. The company is also building boards for its two newest ventures: Mozilla VC and Mozilla AI.
Mozilla’s president said he welcomes the current, heightened focus on governance and experimentation with board structures at tech companies that seek to balance commercial and social interests, including Mozilla, the AI company Anthropic, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the WordPress Foundation. “We believe the world—and the internet—needs more successful organizations like this, not less,” the company argues. “Getting the right mix of people in board roles is key to this kind of success.”