Hello, I’m mySociety’s new CEO

Back in March, mySociety’s founder Tom Steinberg, announced that he would step down.

Today, I’m pleased to announce that later this month I will be taking over the reins as Tom’s successor. I’m Mark Cridge, and I guess I should start by introducing myself.

I’ve had a diverse 20-year career doing digital things. Most recently I was chief operating officer with the lovely folks at BERG, a London-based technology and design consultancy many of you might know. For the past year I was a senior advisor at Blue State Digital in London, the team responsible for the digital strategy used in President Obama’s electoral campaigns.

I began my career back in 1996 in a small web design agency in Birmingham, before setting up glue London, a digital advertising agency, going on to become global managing director of Isobar, following glue’s acquisition in 2005. I originally studied Architecture before realising that wasn’t quite my cup of tea, and that the internet held more immediate attractions.

I’m genuinely excited to take what I’ve learned over my time to date, and to apply it to help build on Tom’s achievements as mySociety’s founder — by creating even more digital tools that make a difference to the lives of citizens in Britain and around the world.

What I’ll be focusing on

mySociety’s mission is unchanged: we exist to invent and popularise new digital tools that enable citizens to exert power over institutions and decision makers.

As CEO I plan to focus on mySociety’s users, partners and volunteers both in the UK and in dozens of countries internationally, where we now conduct the great majority of our work.

My initial priorities will be to ensure that mySociety’s existing sites keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the world of civic technologies, whilst also thinking through where we can move into new and exciting areas.

I want to make a new push to ensure that charities, activists and journalists around the world are able to run successful, high profile sites of their own, powered by mySociety’s open source technologies.

We will also be building up our research team over the next few years, to ensure that we are providing tools and services that have genuine impact, which we ourselves are able to measure.

All of which will build towards a reaffirmation of mySociety’s place as a key player within the global civic technology movement.

Making this all possible

Of course, all of this is possible only thanks to the generous support of our many funders — and needless to say we are always looking for more, if you think you can help then please do let me know. In particular, I will be spending a good deal of time delivering the three-year vision we developed with our friends at the Omidyar Network, with whom we announced a major $3.6m funding partnership earlier this year.

That said, one of mySociety’s great assets is that we are not entirely reliant on donor funding, so I will also retain our strong focus on helping our commercial clients — from UK local councils and charities to global technology giants — to serve their own users better, by working with mySociety Commercial Services.

All in all, I am indebted to Tom for leaving mySociety with sound finances and a world-class team of developers, both of which will be invaluable in helping me to take the organisation to the next level over its second decade.

I am also grateful to Tom and mySociety’s trustees for putting their trust in me. I’ve been an admirer of mySociety, and a user of its sites, for many years. It is a great privilege to be appointed as CEO.

I will be spending the next few months with the team as we plot and plan the next phase of our development which you can read more about here on this blog in the coming months. So if any of this sounds interesting to you then please get in touch.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Mark

And Tom says…

A big welcome to Mark!

I am excited that someone with so much digital experience has come along to guide mySociety in our second decade. We’ve always been an unusual social enterprise in that while we have a social mission, we also operate a first class software development and design team in-house. With Mark on board we will retain and grow that digital credibility, whilst focusing ever more deeply on the needs of our international partners, our UK clients, and growing our research capacity so that we know what is (and isn’t) working.

I am looking forward to spending the next month brain-dumping to Mark, before I slip quietly out the door in early August.

It’s an exciting time for mySociety, and I hope everyone will join me in celebrating Mark’s arrival!

9 Comments

  1. Charlie Martial NGOUNOU

    Hello Mark,
    Warm welcome from me and AfroLeadership Team.
    MySociety is doing a wonderful job.

    Charlie, AfroLeadership
    Cameroon.

  2. Gaile Fullard, Rashaad Alli and Zaheedah Adams, People's Assembly South Africa

    Welcome, Mark, we look forward to a fruitful relationship with you steering the ship.

  3. Hello and welcome!
    I would love to have always the link to reliable statistics to back my letters/ campaign.
    What I find personally really helpful is also making ‘statistics’ or figures visible!

    I am involved in protecting the greenbelt of the world’s first garden city Letchworth from development. I find it helpful to have pictures which show a fact: i.e. how much is acre is?
    for instance in football pitches – (in our case its 111 acres in football pitches)….
    Welcome to the lovely lets change the world and make it a good place for everybody <3

  4. Congratulations Mark!

    Would love to meet up in the coming months and see if can help each other improve the environment through love clean streets and fix my street. Let me know if it is of interest to you.

    Cheers

    Ian Blackburn
    Founder & CEO
    Lovecleanstreets.com
    BBITS.co.uk