Add a blog post launching Project Director elections

Author: tomassedovic

content/inside-rust/electing-new-project-directors-2025.md

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+path = "inside-rust/9999/12/31/electing-new-project-directors-2025"
+title = "Electing New Project Directors 2025"
+authors = ["Tomas Sedovic"]
+
+[extra]
+team = "the Leadership Council team"
+team_url = "https://www.rust-lang.org/governance/teams/leadership-council#team-leadership-council"
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+
+
+Today we are launching the process to elect two Project Directors to the Rust Foundation Board of Directors. This is the second round of slots, following from [last year's election](https://blog.rust-lang.org/inside-rust/2024/09/06/electing-new-project-directors/).
+
+We will briefly explain the goals and procedures here, but this is mostly copy-pasted from [last year's post](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2023/08/30/electing-new-project-directors.html) and the [official process documentation][pde-process].
+
+We ask all project members to begin working with their Leadership Council representative to nominate potential Project Directors. See the [Candidate Gathering](#candidate-gathering) section for more details. Nominations are due by September 18, 2025.
+
+[pde-process]: https://github.com/rust-lang/leadership-council/blob/main/policies/project-directorship/election-process.md
+
+## What are Project Directors?
+
+The Rust Foundation Board of Directors has five seats reserved for Project Directors.
+These Project Directors serve as representatives of the Rust project itself on the Board.
+Like all Directors, the Project Directors are elected by the entity they represent, which in the case of the Rust Project means they are elected by the Rust Leadership Council.
+Project Directors serve for a term of two years and will have staggered terms.
+This year we will appoint three directors and next year we will appoint two directors.
+
+See the [Role Description] document for more details about what is involved in being a Director.
+
+The current project directors are Carol Nichols, Ryan Levick, Santiago Pastorino, Scott McMurray, and Jakob Degen.
+This year, Santiago Pastorino, Scott McMurray, and Jakob Degen's seats are open for election.
+
+We want to make sure the Project Directors can effectively represent the project as a whole, so we are soliciting input from the whole project.
+The elections process will go through two phases: Candidate Gathering and Election.
+Read on for more detail about how these work.
+
+[Role Description]: https://github.com/rust-lang/leadership-council/blob/main/roles/rust-foundation-project-director.md
+
+## Candidate Gathering
+
+The first phase is beginning right now.
+In this phase, we are inviting the members of all of the top level Rust teams and their subteams to nominate people who will make good project directors.
+The goal is to bubble these up to the Council through each of the top-level teams.
+You should be hearing from your Council Representative soon with more details, but if not, feel free to reach out to them directly.
+
+Each team is encouraged to suggest candidates.
+Since we are electing two new directors, it would be ideal for teams to nominate at least two candidates.
+Nominees can be anyone in the project and do not have to be a member of the team who nominates them.
+
+The candidate gathering process will be open until October 9, at which point each team's Council Representative will share their team's nominations and reasoning with the whole Leadership Council.
+At this point, the Council will confirm with each of the nominees that they are willing to accept the nomination and fill the role of Project Director.
+Then the Council will publish the set of candidates.
+
+This then starts a ten day period where members of the Rust Project are invited to share feedback on the nominees with the Council.
+This feedback can include reasons why a nominee would make a good project director, or concerns the Council should be aware of.
+
+The Council will announce the set of nominees by September 19 and the feedback period will last until October 2.
+Once this time has passed, we will move on to the election phase.
+
+## Election
+
+The Council will meet on of October 3 to complete the election process.
+In this meeting we will discuss each candidate and once we have done this the facilitator will propose a set of two of them to be the new Project Directors.
+The facilitator puts this to a vote, and if the Council unanimously agrees with the proposed pair of candidates then the process is completed.
+Otherwise, we will give another opportunity for council members to express their objections and we will continue with another proposal.
+This process repeats until we find two nominees who the Council can unanimously consent to.
+The Council will then confirm these nominees through an official vote.
+
+Once this is done, we will announce the new Project Directors.
+In addition, we will contact each of the nominees, including those who were not elected, to offer feedback.
+For those who accept feedback we will follow up to tell them a little bit more about what we saw as their strengths and opportunities for growth to help them serve better in similar roles in the future.
+
+## Timeline
+
+This process will continue through all of September and into October.
+Below are the key dates:
+
+* Candidate nominations due: September 18
+* Candidates published: September 19
+* Feedback period: October 19 - October 2
+* Election meeting: October 3
+* First board meeting starting the new term: October 14
+
+After the election meeting happens, the Rust Leadership Council will announce the results and the new Project Directors will assume their responsibilities.
+
+## Acknowledgements
+
+A number of people have been involved in designing and launching this election process and we wish to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of them!
+
+We'd especially like to thank Eric Holk and Ryan Levick for helping to improve our process.