Announcement: Teresa Dietrich leaves Stack

Question

Some of you know Teresa Dietrich, our Chief Product Officer. Teresa’s last day with the company was Friday, April 21st. In the 3+ years that she was here, Teresa had a huge impact on the company and the website. In addition to the Product team, Teresa had the Community team under her purview, and for more than half of her tenure she also acted as Chief Technology Officer.

From my vantage point, the Community team in particular owes her a debt of gratitude - she was a fierce advocate. However, since her departure, I’ve been amazed and delighted at the level of support that we’ve gotten from the rest of the Leadership team here, and I know that I’m not overstating when I say that the fiercest advocates for the community include Prashanth (the CEO and my interim boss) and myself. There will be no shortage of advocacy.

Speaking personally, Teresa was an incredible boss, with the unique talent of asking the question that put everything into frame and perspective. She is leaving to pursue other interests, which (she assures me) include traveling and taking some well deserved time off.

We have already begun the search for a new Chief Product Officer, though Teresa’s shoes will be hard to fill. In the meantime, the Product Leadership Team remains intact, and will report to Prashanth, our CEO. For matters related to the Stack Exchange and Stack Overflow communities, there should be little change; I will continue to run the Community Management team, just as before, and will facilitate the work of that team, which includes acting as the Voice of the Community to the Product team, providing feedback and ideas for feature development, representing the needs of the community on key strategic products, and issues related to strategic change management within the community.

I know that my whole team, and so many others here, wish Teresa the very best. If you have concerns or questions for what this transition period means for the community, please let us know in answers below. Out of respect for Teresa's privacy, however, we won’t answer questions about her plans for the future.

Answer 1

Teresa arrived in a very difficult position at a very difficult time, and I remain impressed with the skill and grace with which she handled the situation.

I also had the opportunity to chat personally with Teresa via Slack and Zoom, which served to reinforce those initial impressions that she was trying to do the right thing with the appropriate tact for everyone involved.

And while I sometimes disagree with some of the directions taken during the period that she's been here, I've never doubted that Teresa was working with the best of interests and a good heart. I wish her every success in her next endeavors.

Answer 2

Well - When Teresa took over, I think both the company and its links with the community were rock bottom. Our community team was... pretty much the smallest it had been, and frankly the only reason I was still on SE was I didn't trust the company to take care of my sites.

I think its a credit that I'm not worried about major dumpster fires- we're in better shape than we were, and there's a much better degree of support than there used to be. We've a community team that's reasonably staffed, the company does seem to be more focused on Q&A things for most part and generally things are stable.

I've interacted with her directly on a few occasions, and some of these were less pleasant topics, and she seemed fairly empathetic and considerate.

If I've got any complaints, she's leaving her replacement very large shoes to fill. I wish her the best on her next adventures.