The GNOME Foundation announced that Executive Director Holly Million has is resigning from the role, less than a year after accepting it.

Million was brought on in October 2023 to help the GNOME Foundation with its fundraising efforts. At the time, the foundation touted Million’s “three decades of invaluable experience in nonprofit management” as one of leading reasons behind hiring her.

Now, nine months later, Million is resigning to pursue a PhD in Psychology and to focus on her own private practice.

“I’m very proud of what I have accomplished in my time with GNOME,” Million said, “and I am dedicated to working with Richard through a transition to ensure that everything I have been working on is handed off smoothly. I will be pursuing a PhD in Psychology and dedicating myself to my own private practice. I want to thank all the wonderful people I have had the pleasure of connecting with here at GNOME, including the staff, board, advisors, founders, and volunteers. You have created something of real value in the world, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.”

The foundation touted the work Million has done in her short tenure:

On behalf of the whole GNOME community, the Board of Directors would like to give our utmost thanks to Holly for her achievements during the past 10 months, including drafting a bold five-year strategic plan for the Foundation, securing two important fiscal sponsorship agreements with GIMP and Black Python Devs, writing our first funding proposal that will now enable the Foundation to apply for more grants, vastly improving our financial operations, and implementing a break-even budget to preserve our financial reserves.

Richard Littauer has joined the foundation as Interim Executive Director while the search for a permanent replacement begins.

The Foundation’s Interim Executive Director, Richard Littauer, brings years of open source leadership as part of his work as an organizer of SustainOSS and CURIOSS, as a sustainability coordinator at the Open Source Initiative, and as a community development manager at Open Source Collective, and through open source contributions to many projects, such as Node.js and IPFS. The Board appointed Richard in June and is confident in his ability to guide the Foundation during this transitional period.