Will MacAskill has stepped down as trustee of EV UK

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2023·EA Forum·forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mArisdpuQiFtTNWw3/will-...

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lincolnq

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This post documents a governance change within Effective Ventures UK relevant to understanding how EA institutions responded to reputational and structural pressures following the FTX collapse in 2022.

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Summary

Will MacAskill has resigned from the board of Effective Ventures UK after serving as a trustee since the organization's founding. His departure was accelerated by conflicts of interest stemming from the FTX collapse, which had required him to recuse himself from significant board decisions. MacAskill co-founded major EA organizations including Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours.

Key Points

•MacAskill resigned from EV UK's board after over a decade as a founding trustee, accelerating a departure he had been planning for months.
•His recusal from major board decisions due to FTX-related conflicts of interest was a key factor in accelerating his exit.
•A prolonged trustee recruitment process also contributed to the timing of his resignation.
•MacAskill co-founded Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, and was central to establishing the EA organizational ecosystem.
•The departure reflects broader governance restructuring within Effective Ventures following the FTX collapse fallout.

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# Will MacAskill has stepped down as trustee of EV UK
By lincolnq
Published: 2023-09-21
Earlier today, Will MacAskill stepped down from the board of Effective Ventures UK[^1], having served as a trustee since its founding more than a decade ago.

Will has been intending to step down for several months and announced his intention to do so [earlier this year](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DdSszj5NXk45MhQoq/decision-making-and-decentralisation-in-ea). Will had initially planned to remain on the board until we brought on additional trustees to replace him. However, given that our trustee recruitment process has taken [longer than anticipated](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pr3WfFTNNYWKkTA6w/what-s-happening-with-the-evf-trustee-recruitment?commentId=spQers5wMthBgwYMJ), and given also that Will continues to be recused from a significant proportion of board business[^2], he felt that it didn’t make sense for him to stay on any longer.  

[Will announced his resignation today](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TeBBvwQH7KFwLT7w5/william_macaskill-s-shortform?commentId=oKKD57W8koSsASqRo). 

As a founding board member of EV UK (then called CEA), Will played a vital role in getting EV and its constituent projects off the ground, including co-founding Giving What We Can and 80,000 Hours. We are very grateful to Will for everything he’s contributed to the effective altruism movement to date and look forward to his future positive impact; we wish him the best of luck with his future work. 

[^1]:  For context, EV UK hosts and fiscally sponsors several (mostly EA-related) projects, such as CEA, 80,000 Hours and various others (see more [here](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GoWNiPbrEb6NHD3MF/announcing-interim-ceos-of-evf)). 

[^2]: This is because his recusal affected not just decisions that were directly related to the collapse of FTX, but also many other decisions for which the way EV UK has been affected by the collapse of FTX was important context.

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