Dear Etsians,

Here are a couple important news items, from Rob and Maria.

From Rob:

I am happy to announce that, with high hopes and expectations, Maria is now Etsy's CEO. My new title at Etsy is Chief Creative Officer (CCO), a nice loose moniker that will allow me to focus on what I'm best at: product work and long-term, big-picture thinking.

I will also be spending time developing Etsy.org, a non-profit organization that will focus on the educational side of how to make a living making things. (Lots more details about this are coming soon. Right now, it's in the planning stages.)

I've been filling many roles since Etsy began, all of them new to me in some way. It's been an incredible and exhausting education, much of it public. Watching Maria, with her experience and expertise, has enabled me to make this decision. I'm excited to get back to what I enjoy most, and maybe even work less than seven days a week for the first time in a long time.

From Maria:

I am thrilled to announce that Chad Dickerson will join Etsy in Brooklyn as Chief Technology Officer September 1, 2008.  As Etsy’s CTO, Chad will be the company’s top technology executive and will join Rob, me and the Etsy team in helping to shape Etsy’s strategic direction, development, and future growth.  Chad will manage our entire technical organization, including application development, network infrastructure and quality assurance.  He will report to me.

In my recent “Long View” article, I spoke about seeking “…a few talented, experienced people to join Etsy and help us more quickly and successfully do things we’ve never done before, while continuing to celebrate Etsy’s creative, quirky and independent culture.”  Chad is the first of these few folks.  He’s an experienced leader of technical teams and a home brewer!

Chad joins us from Yahoo! where he has spent the last three years leading technical teams in innovative product development.  He is currently Senior Director for Yahoo!’s Brickhouse & Advanced Products team, a group outside of Yahoo’s! corporate structure designed to be more nimble and customer-focused.  In this role Chad heads up a cross-functional team of engineers, designers, and product managers who incubate and launch Web-based, high availability, consumer-facing products.

Before Yahoo!, Chad was CTO at InfoWorld Media Group / IDG for five years and before that, CTO at Salon.com for three years.  In both CTO roles, Chad was the senior executive responsible for technology strategy and execution. 

Chad started his Web career as an Internet Developer and Gopher Administrator at "The News & Observer" (http://www.newsobserver.com/)  in Raleigh, NC.  He is a Tar Heel native, and his parents will be very pleased to have him back on the east Coast.

Read more about Chad at his blog:  http://www.chaddickerson.com/
Here is his corresponding announcement.

Welcome, Chad. We're happy to have you.

Here's the forum thread, if you'd like to discuss the news.