Executive Director

The MetaBrainz Foundation is seeking a new Executive Director (ED) to lead it during a time of great change for how music, data, and code are made, shared and used.

The MetaBrainz Foundation is a non-profit that provides free, open access to data. It is the steward of open source databases and software, including MusicBrainz (a community-maintained open source music metadata encyclopedia that supplies infrastructure to many of the world’s most-used music products and services), and Picard (an open source software application for identifying, tagging, and organizing digital audio recordings). MetaBrainz is supported by its community, sponsors, and by the commercial organizations who rely on what it does.

In collaboration with the Foundation’s Board of Directors, the ED is ultimately responsible for delivering the MetaBrainz mission, guaranteeing the organization's top priority: the good health of its community. The ED is also in charge of maintaining excellent relationships with industrial partners. Ultimately, you will ensure that MetaBrainz operates with integrity, efficiency and transparency, that it remains in financial good health, and that its small in-house team of developers is supported and managed with sensitivity and professionalism.

Our new ED will be based in Europe. The role involves some travel, as well as virtual meetings in Europe, Asia and the Americas. They will be someone of integrity and good judgement, ideally someone with stature in either the open source or music communities. They will understand the ethical and regulatory requirements of NPOs. They’ll understand the history & mechanics of recorded music and be open to the possibilities and threats from a very rapidly changing technical, commercial and artistic world beyond music.

The ED’s primary responsibility is to ensure MetaBrainz fulfils its mission with integrity, transparency, and respect for its community. They will:

• Work to keep the MetaBrainz community healthy: welcoming, fair, and constructive.
• Represent MetaBrainz, to its community, the public, and the industries it supports, ensuring the Foundation's strategy and operational activities are communicated appropriately.
• Work with the Board to build the Foundation's strategy and the operational plan to realize it, including budget setting and management, ensuring the organization remains financially stable.
• Oversee agreements with commercial partners and suppliers.
• Make sure MetaBrainz meets its nonprofit and data-related legal obligations across jurisdictions.
• Preempt emerging regulatory and industry changes that could affect the MetaBrainz mission.
• Maintain strong, trust-based relationships with current commercial users and sponsors.
• Grow relationships with current and prospective partners, encouraging them to support the ecosystem they rely on.
• Support and manage the in-house team.

Ideally the incoming ED will have:

• An excellent understanding of the international music industry.
• Experience maintaining healthy, vibrant online communities.
• Open source project governance experience.
• Knowledge of international copyright frameworks and the commercial framework for music.
• Fluency in English (Spanish and other languages a plus).
• Experience managing physical and digital events such as community meet-ups, summits, and development intensives.
• Knowledge of local and international regulatory frameworks for non-profit organizations.
• Experience managing complex software development projects.