American Go E-Journal

AGA Presidential Search Committee report

Wednesday May 11, 2022

The Presidential Search Committee has received applications from three dedicated and highly capable candidates with long records of service to the AGA: Lisa Scott, Devin Fraze, and Gurujeet Khalsa. Among their many contributions to the go community, they all have experience on the AGA Board. Lisa is the current chair of the board and a Central Region representative; Devin is a Central Region representative, and Gurujeet was formerly chair and an Eastern Region representative.

The application process was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, the Search Committee collected statements of candidacy and CVs from all the applicants. In the second stage, applicants were asked to respond to a set of written questions. And in the third stage, the Search Committee held an interview with each applicant. Each of these stages is now complete.

The AGA bylaws specify that the Board needs to appoint the incoming president with an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the full board, which is five of seven members. However, the bylaws do not address how to specifically handle situations where board members are candidates for the presidency, which is the case with two of the candidates. With this in mind, the Board established the Search Committee to navigate the process and both current board members who are candidates for the presidency have been asked to recuse themselves from the process as well as the vote, which they have agreed to.

The committee invites anyone who wishes to discuss or offer comments on the candidates with the search committee at president-search-committee@usgo.org, or to reach out to their Board representative.

The bylaws stipulate that the Board announces the new president by June 1, 2022. The Board will meet in special session on May 29, 2022, to determine the new president, and will announce its decision by June 1, 2022.