Hi! This is Hsiao-Wei and Tomasz co-writing this blog post. We’ve now been in our new Co-Executive Director roles for almost a month. The honeymoon is over, it’s time to get moving.

A Moment of Transition and Opportunity

Ethereum has always been a journey: a constantly evolving ecosystem powered by people who believe in building a more open and decentralized world. While the Ethereum Foundation (EF) may be a decade old, it remains willing to reinvent itself.

This year, EF embraced a new leadership model with dual Executive Directors. This design brings diverse and complementary perspectives, enhancing our ability to meet complex challenges. We are excited to embrace the opportunities and challenges ahead, guided by a deep commitment to Ethereum’s core values and a vision grounded in stewardship, coordination, and long-term thinking.

Importantly, EF is not a two-headed carriage pulling in different directions. Our relationship is built on mutual respect, trust, and shared values. We collaborate closely, challenge each other constructively, and ultimately move forward as a united team with shared goals.

Our Principles and Focus Areas

Looking ahead, we will be working with two pillars:
Guiding Principles (our core values) and Objectives (our pursuit of impact and resilience). Technical excellence underpins all that we do and it’s the foundation that enables us to deliver on our mission.

Our job as Executive Directors is to implement EF’s vision in a constantly changing world. Our role includes strategic planning, ecosystem stewardship, team leadership, and operational oversight. All in support of Ethereum’s long-term success.

Values we champion:

• Censorship Resistance: Ensuring that Ethereum remains an open network where anyone, anywhere, can transact and build without barriers or external control.
• Open Source Innovation: Fostering collaboration, transparency, and community-driven development through openly shared knowledge and tools.
• Privacy Protection: Safeguarding individual freedom and autonomy in a digital world by enabling private interactions without sacrificing security.
• Security: Maintaining trust, robustness, and resilience across the Ethereum ecosystem by prioritizing secure design and continuous research.

These values are the foundation that guide our technical choices, our support for the ecosystem, and our long-term vision for Ethereum as a public good.

While remembering these values, we’ve set major directions for the next 12 months:

• Scaling Ethereum mainnet
• Scaling blobs
• Improving UX, including L2 interop + application layer

Together, that means improving mainnet and L2s interoperability and coodination, UX, DevEx, giving applications and L2s more presence and attention at Devcon, amplifying their messages via communication channels.

Beyond this, we understand that we need to accelerate journeys of developers, founders, institutions through the pathways towards building on Ethereum and adopting Ethereum. Ethereum Foundation has knowledge and leaders who can mentor, lead, attract, and onboard talent.

Tomasz’s Note

Ethereum starts the next chapter. The values remain unchanged: open source, censorship resistance, privacy, and security. The Ethereum Foundation changes – into an organization that will communicate more and more openly, an organization that will be willing to enter difficult dialogues without delay.

We will focus on speed of execution, accountability, clear goals, objectives, and metrics to track. We will be focused on the success of the Ethereum mainnet protocol. Ethereum mainnet will remain a global, neutral network, a protocol trusted to be trustless. We will focus on the success of Ethereum mainnet and the entire ecosystem – L2s that bring mass adoption and numerous benefits to the users, mainnet that stands as both a solid rock and a nimble network behind all the transactions and coordination mechanisms. We are excited about the journey – a journey through one of the most inspiring technological and societal shifts we will ever experience, a journey that we will embark on together – visionaries and down-to-earth builders.

Ahead of us lies one year of scaling – scaling Ethereum mainnet (L1), supporting the success of L2 chains by providing them with the best architecture to scale, to secure their networks, and to bring confidence to their users. Ahead of us is a focus on making the entire ecosystem of chains feel like one by delivering the best UX, design, and interoperability, while achieving scaling through engineering excellence and cutting-edge research.

Hsiao-Wei’s Note

In the next few months, my priority will be on strengthening the EF’s operations to support the ecosystem’s growth. An adaptable and capable foundation helps us better serve Ethereum’s long-term mission.

As we move with sharper focus, one of our goals is to better support Ethereum’s application layer. We will support builders and users by improving the developer and user experience, clarifying standards, strengthening ecosystems, and smoothing the journey from ideas to live applications.

We are working to improve how we plan, prioritize, and coordinate across teams within EF and across the broader ecosystem, keeping our efforts aligned with community needs and Ethereum’s cypherpunk spirit. Strengthening EF is only one part of the transition. The real momentum comes from the energy and creativity of the global Ethereum ecosystem.

A Future Built Together

Ethereum is not a monolith. It is a living, breathing network of communities, builders, researchers, artists, educators, and dreamers. It is global, diverse, and proudly decentralized. We are continually inspired by the creativity and resilience of the ecosystem. EF will continue to show up where we’re most needed, but also make space when the ecosystem flourishes on its own. This is a community-led future.

The road ahead is full of possibilities. Ethereum has already transformed what’s possible in technology, finance, governance, and beyond. To everyone building, teaching, researching, experimenting, and imagining new futures: thank you. Together, we are building something bigger than any one team, project, or generation. We’re honored to walk this path with you, and we’re excited for all that’s ahead.

The recent appointments of the two Co-Executive Directors and President are part of a broader effort to strengthen the Ethereum Foundation, and this structure is designed to ensure our vision, strategic and balanced execution, technical direction, and ecosystem development. This blog is intended to clarify the structure of the management team and the board.

New Management (Strategic & Operational Execution)

EF’s Co-EDs will lead and execute together with other management members. You can expect to hear from members of EF management regularly on their plans, decisions, and other new changes.

• Hsiao-Wei Wang, Co-Executive Director
• Tomasz K. Stańczak, Co-Executive Director
• Bastian Aue – Focus areas: Org strategy, Hiring and Training, Co-stewards
• Josh Stark – Focus areas: Project execution, Comms & marketing, Co-stewards

Board of Directors (Oversight & Vision)

The EF board is like a security council to protect the heart and soul of EF, and to ensure compliance as a Swiss foundation. The board sets the vision, oversees that the high-level strategies and decisions by management are aligned with the Foundation’s values. The Board is also responsible for selecting Executive Director(s), and if necessary terminating the employment of executives. The current board of directors includes:

• Vitalik Buterin, Founder – continues to provide technical and intellectual guidance to the broader Ethereum ecosystem
• Aya Miyaguchi, President – sets the Ethereum Foundation’s vision with other board members. Manages some key external relationships
• Patrick Storchenegger, Swiss counsel – serves as the Swiss representative for legal and compliance matters
• Hsiao-Wei Wang, Co-Executive Director – serves as the bridge between the board, executives, and management

The board has shared the vision, guiding principles and goals for the next few years with the management team. We anticipate further strengthening the board to better serve its mission over time.

Tomasz and Hsiao-Wei Wang’s appointments as Co-EDs are an unconventional decision, but one that allows them to complement one another at a busy time for the Ethereum ecosystem and EF alike.

Tomasz will be enabled to help EF drive strong and comprehensive changes based on his grasp of community and technological needs while he stays involved in other companies (Nethermind and venture affiliations). The board and Tomasz have agreed to the expected two year term for his Co-ED role at EF to leverage his proven strategic execution-expertise and experience, especially as the next couple of years bring significant opportunities for Ethereum.

Hsiao-Wei’s dual board and ED roles, in addition to her research experience, will help her to serve as a bridge between the board and management, with an eye for the needs of the organization that come with a deep understanding of its history and place.