Administration & Financial Operations

This function coordinates W3C-wide Membership and financial operations, and regional management. Responsibilities include:

  • Finance
  • Billing and receivables
  • Membership operations

Catrina Ahlbach

Chief of Staff, Manager of the Office of the CEO

Catrina joined W3C in December 2024. A long time web developer and evangelist, she is now working on a Masters in Library and Information Studies.

Seth Dobbs

Chief Executive Officer

Seth is W3C President & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) since November 2023.

Seth reports to the W3C Board of Directors and takes responsibility for the fiscal integrity, financial stability and revenue generation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). He leads the change management and integration efforts for W3C to create new offerings, seek broader financial support opportunities, and succeed as a public-interest not-for-profit with global partners. He oversees shaping and running W3C in line with its mission to lead the Web to its full potential.

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Emma Fraser

Administrative Associate & Board Enablement Specialist

Emma joined W3C in July 2024, fresh out Wellesley College '24, to assist as recording secretary for the Advisory Board and Board of Directors.

She graduated Magna Cum Laude with degrees in Psychology and East Asian Languages and Cultures with a focus in Chinese. She also published research in Psychology investigating the correlation between the sexualization of female characters in video games and hostile sexism, comparing genres with sexist/feminist attitudes.

Alexandra Lacourba

Director, Global Events; Director, Financial Operations

Alexandra joined W3C in September 2002.

She oversees all aspects of event planning, including budgeting, scheduling, and coordinating with internal teams and external vendors. She also leads Membership Administration including AC representative liaison, billing, reporting and other administration. She is also in charge of other financial operations such as staff travels.

Alexandra holds a bachelor in Event Project Management from Lille University and a Master in Management from EDHEC Business School.

Zhenjie Li

Senior Administrative Specialist

Zhenjie joined W3C in May 2017 as the Administration staff and meeting planner at the Beihang host site in China ,she hold a bachelor degree in law when she graduated from Shandong university in 2010, then got an opportunity to do interdisciplinary studies of law and economics at three European universities---Bologna university, Hamburg university and Vienna university, after this one-year programme she received her master degree in Law and Economics in February 2017.

Ralph Swick

Chief Operating Officer

Ralph joined W3C in January 1997, to focus on the Privacy and Demographics project. As that project (now called P3P) was starting, Ralph also started the Metadata project. The Resource Description Framework became a full-time responsibility when the Metadata Activity turned into the Semantic Web Activity. In 2007 Ralph became the leader of the Technology and Society Domain and in 2009 was appointed Acting Chief Operating Officer. As of 2010 the 'acting' qualifier was removed. Then in 2022 Ralph was appointed as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the new W3C, Inc. In November 2023 when W3C's permanent CEO joined, Ralph resumed his role as Chief Operating Officer.

Ralph came to W3C from the X Consortium, where he was Technical Director for the X Window System. Ralph brings to W3C both a systems background and an application background. Long involved with the X Window System, Ralph was one of the architects of the Xt Intrinsics (user interface) toolkit.

Prior to joining the X Consortium, Ralph was a software engineer for Digital Equipment Corporation in their Office Systems Advanced Development Group. There he worked on information filtering tools (software agents) and computer-supported cooperative work tools. Before that, Ralph was in Digital's Corporate Research Group working at MIT Project Athena. Ralph holds a BS in Physics and Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Ralph's interests are in applications of Web technologies to support human-human interaction, especially over time and distance.

Ken Troshinsky

Chief Financial Officer

Ken joined the W3C Team in February 2024 as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).