[Owasp-board] Proposal to change our bylaws about board member rotation and term limits

Fri Oct 9 11:57:28 UTC 2015

Hello dear community,

I like to raise a thought about term limits defined in our bylaws and 
how to encourage more board member rotation in the future, strengthening 
our governance and bringing new blood in the organisation.

Last month, I had a very interesting discussion with the chair and some 
board members of ISC2 and they are currently moving to a more 
restrictive way of term limits to encourage new board members and 
rotation to improve oversight.

Our current OWASP bylaws state in section 2.02
"An individual is limited to 4 consecutive 2 year terms"

I like to put this in context of other organisations like ISC2 bylaws:
In the past they had "No member may be elected to the Board more than 
twice in any seven year period. " (Their term is for 3years.). They 
noticed a problem with people staying on very long after a one year 
break and hindering renewal of the board. So they are now moving 
towards*"Service as a Director may not exceed six years in any ten year 
period"**. *

I had a longer conversation with several ISC2 directors and I think this 
is a good idea and move, to enhance governance, democratic processes and 
bring in new people with new ideas (and avoid that the same people 
continue to sit on the board for too long). As you know many democratic 
elected presidents have term limits. The US president being a good example.

I think we should consider to as well strengthen our bylaws in that 
regard and make ourselves more open and encouraging for new blood on the 
board.

*=> My proposal idea would be to adjust section 2.02 of our bylaws to 
state: **
*"An individual is limited to 3 consecutive 2 year terms and serving as 
a Director may not exceed six years in any ten year period."

Please note: Naturally this change could not affect the currently 
ongoing board elections (as they are already in progress), so it would 
take effect only going forward for all new upcoming elections.

What are your thoughts on this?

Best regards, Tobias

Tobias Gondrom
Chairman OWASP Global Board
email: tobias.gondrom at owasp.org <mailto:tobias.gondrom at owasp.org>
skype: tgondrom
twitter: @tgondrom

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