TYPO3 Association Board Report January–August 2025

You will also find updates on specific contributions  reflecting our commitment to clarity, structure, and community-driven progress within the TYPO3 ecosystem.

A key focus is to improve the Board’s dialogue with the Association’s members and the wider community. This article is one step toward that goal.

The TYPO3 Association Board meets regularly, both online and in person. In addition to formal decisions, the meetings provide a space to review progress, update shared goals, and address organizational needs in a structured and transparent way. The meetings regularly include representation from the Business Control Committee (BCC) and the TYPO3 Company leadership.

While online meetings take place every second week, the in-person meetings happen once every quarter. The year’s first in-person meeting, or QSA (Quarterly Summit of the Association), took place at the TYPO3 Company headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany 10–11 February 2025. There, the Board initiated its plans for the year.

The second QSA took place in the days before the General Assembly in Düsseldorf, Germany, 7–8 April 2025. The work to strengthen leadership, refine governance, and align strategic priorities continued.

By fostering transparency and continuous improvement, the Board is committed to strengthening its leadership and enhancing the effectiveness of the TYPO3 Association.

The TYPO3 Association Board is actively working on the topic of leadership as part of its governance responsibilities. Our aim is to identify the leadership style that best fits a large, international, volunteer-driven open-source community — and make it practical.

Since the TYPO3 Developer Days in July 2024, the Board attended focused workshops on key approaches: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team to strengthen trust and accountability, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to improve clarity and empathy, and Radical Candor to balance caring personally with challenging directly. Each method brings tools the TYPO3 organisation could apply to decision-making, conflict resolution, and collaborative work. 

The next step will be defining a simple leadership toolkit that fits TYPO3’s culture, apply it within the Board first, and then share the validated approach across the organisation. Importantly, this isn’t about importing corporate management into open source. It’s about giving our community shared language and practical habits for how we collaborate — especially across languages, time zones, and roles. By starting with the Board, then spreading what works, we aim to make leadership a multiplier for the entire TYPO3 ecosystem.

As leaders, it is essential that we provide open, constructive and non-harmful feedback both to the community and each other. We used what we learned in the workshops as the basis of our annual reviews, where each Board members’ Outcome Agreements and achievements are evaluated.

In our volunteer-driven organization, contributions vary depending on personal priorities and available time. At the same time, the organization must continue operating effectively, and key projects need to be completed. This challenge applies to all contributors, including Board members.

To address this, the Board members sign Outcome Agreements that define clear deliverables, aligned with the TYPO3 Association Strategy. The agreements form the basis of our internal consequence management system, and ensure accountability while acknowledging the volunteer nature of open source contributions.

The Outcome Agreements help each of us to report on both accomplishments and challenges. This year, the individual reports were followed by a structured feedback session, where the other board members could provide input based on three key aspects:

• Keep — What worked well and should be maintained?
• Improve — What areas could be enhanced?
• Stop — What should be discontinued?

Giving open and honest feedback can be challenging, particularly in the Improve and Stop categories. However, our newly implemented communication strategies proved valuable, leading to insights through meaningful and constructive discussions.

The Board’s activities are diverse: from protecting the brand and fostering education to gathering market intelligence and strengthening our internal processes, all Board members contribute to a stronger, more vibrant TYPO3 community. Here are some highlights of the 2025 activities.

• TYPO3 Professional Training Framework: An important output is the 578-hour comprehensive TYPO3 training curriculum designed specifically for IT specialist apprenticeships in North Rhine-Westphalia Germany. It prototypes how to provide the community with advanced TYPO3 skills and elevate professional development across the ecosystem.
• TYPO3 Editor Certification Crash Course: This fully-booked training reinforces our commitment to accessible and practical TYPO3 education.
• Protecting the TYPO3 brand: Actively monitoring online advertising for trademark violations has resulted in more companies complying with official trademark guidelines.
• Representing TYPO3 at key industry events: Through networking and attending a variety of events and meetings, Board members receive critical insights on important trends. Events thus far in 2025 include CMS Experts meetings, numerous TYPO3 camps, WordCamp Europe, and NEOS Conference.
• Maintaining industry connections: Through networking and engagement with the broader CMS ecosystem, the Board stays up-to-date on valuable perspectives on how other projects address emerging technologies and organizational challenges.
• An eye on policy developments: Especially through participation in Open Website Alliance meetings, the Board has stayed up-to-date on regulatory challenges posed by the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and similar regulations and policy.
• Supporting contributor engagement and leadership transitions: One-on-one meetings ensure smooth onboarding and offboarding of Board members, maintaining continuity within our organization.
• Strategic planning for TYPO3’s future releases: As part of the Product Strategy Group, TYPO3 Association Board members actively contributed to the strategic planning for upcoming releases. This time-boxed group—created specifically to kick off the first cycle of strategic planning—aligned priorities, clarified roadmap themes, and set decision criteria to balance stability, innovation, and contributor experience across the TYPO3 ecosystem.
• Improving workflows and tool integration: Streamlining processes and evaluating new tools fosters a more efficient and collaborative working environment.
• Better alignment of budget spend: Thus far in 2025, we have been able to invest resources according to plan.
• Maintaining a steady income growth: The last years have shown a slow but steady increase in income. The challenge for the upcoming years will be to keep the pace, as we want to maintain a focus on product development and community expansion investment.

This year, the Board faced real challenges. Many of our processes were new, our communication had to reach a wide set of stakeholders, and the change management effort was significant. It wasn’t easy. We also saw our own weaknesses up close and uncovered many opportunities to improve. Still, the year was rich in learning, and we’re committed to doing better — clearer, faster, and more consistent — in the months ahead.

Elections for the Board and BCC are a crucial part of our Association's democratic life, marking transitions and new beginnings, as Board members step down and new candidates step up.

In recent years, finding nominees for positions has been challenging. Before the 2025 elections, we proactively reached out to potential candidates. As a result, our members were able to choose from a broader and more diverse set of candidates. In the end, nine candidates were in the race for four open positions on the board.

Next year, we hope to apply the same successful method to the BCC.

The General Assembly (GA) is the highest governing body of the TYPO3 Association. It confirms online election results and has the authority to amend our by-laws.

This year, the GA decided in favor of  two submitted petitions that intend to improve the Board elections and provide greater stability and efficiency in the Board:

• Petition 1: Voting Procedure. Beginning with the next election, a candidate needs to have at least 50% of the member votes.  If no candidate achieves this majority in the first round of voting, a further round of voting will take place between the two best-placed candidates. Only when more candidates have achieved a majority will the final election take place according to ranking.
• Petition 2: Change the duration of Board mandates from two to three years. In order to provide stability and efficiency, the Board asked the members to extend the mandates of Board members to three years.

You can find presentations and the official protocol on the General Assembly 2025 page.

The General Assembly 2025 was also a chance to say thank you to two board members who have contributed a lot to the positive changes we have seen over the last few years:

• Tymoteusz Motylewski has played a central role in the market research and strategy discussions leading up to the product strategy.
• Susanne Moog has worked tirelessly, fulfilling the role of secretary during our many meetings.

The Board was also happy to welcome a new board member, bringing important skills to our group:

• Jana Höffner has taken on the responsibility of internal and external communication in the Board. After a long sick leave she joined the regular meetings again in September 2025.
• Martin Helmich has taken over the product strategy portfolio and is additionally the board secretary.

During 2025, the Board prioritized five key areas:

1. Product Strategy Implementation — Ensuring a smooth and effective rollout.
2. Community Expansion — Strengthening and growing our community.
3. Governance Improvement — Enhancing decision-making processes and transparency.
4. Optimizing Team Collaboration — Supporting teams to work more efficiently.
5. Strengthening Collaboration with the TYPO3 Company — Improving cooperation for mutual success.

The work of the Association’s bodies is explained in depth at the annual General Assembly. We encourage you to attend the 2026 General Assembly of the TYPO3 Association! You can sign up to attend both online and in person. Keep checking the news — we’ll let you know as soon as registration opens.

We welcome your input and engagement. Feel free to email us at info@typo3.org.