Biography | Ryan Merkley — The Montgomery Tower Floor He Joined After Five Years at Creative Commons

People treat a Wikimedia chief of staff as a San Francisco title on a movement org chart.

Ryan Merkley took the job from Toronto, after five years running Creative Commons.

On 13 August 2019 the Wikimedia Foundation announced he would join as chief of staff to the office of the executive director, then Katherine Maher.

The start date was 16 September 2019.

He would advise the director, support the board, and work on special projects including Movement Strategy.

Wikidata records the post running until April 2021.

The Foundation's headquarters that autumn was the sixteenth floor of One Montgomery Tower, entered from 120 Kearny Street in San Francisco's Financial District.

Staff had moved there in October 2017 from 149 New Montgomery Street.

Merkley was not asked to relocate. The announcement said he would remain based in Toronto.

The pin is the floor that employed him, a public office tower, not a private address.

Four days after the announcement he was in Stockholm for Wikimania 2019.

Avery Jensen photographed him there on 17 August with a conference lanyard. The Signpost noted his session on copyright and the licences.

That photograph is the cover because it is the dated public image from the week the handover became real.

The tower on Montgomery is still an office building. Wikimedia later reduced its footprint and, in 2024, listed a smaller suite at One Sansome Street.

A visitor cannot walk onto floor 16 without security.

The fact worth standing under the tower for is simpler.

A man who had opened a city data catalogue, run Mozilla programs, and led Creative Commons through a 10-million-dollar Hewlett grant spent the next chapter inside the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia.

The licences and the encyclopedia had been partners for years. For twenty months the same person sat in both rooms.

Photos: Ryan Merkley at Wikimania 2019, Stockholm, Avery Jensen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (17 August 2019). Earlier portrait: Rannie Turingan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (9 May 2014).