Mark Surman

Mark Surman has spent three decades building a better internet, from the advent of the web to the rise of artificial intelligence. As President of Mozilla, a global nonprofit backed technology company that does everything from making Firefox to advocating for a more open, equitable internet, Mark’s current focus is ensuring the various Mozilla organizations work in concert to make trustworthy AI a reality. Mark led the creation of Mozilla.ai (a commercial AI R+D lab) and Mozilla Ventures (an impact venture fund with a strong focus on AI). Mark was Executive Director of Mozilla Foundation for 15 years. He grew the organization into an international movement-building force, renowned for its fellowships, philanthropy, advocacy, and insights work. Prior, Mark was the founding Director of telecentre.org, a $26M initiative connecting community technology centers in more than 30 countries. He ran the Commons Group, a boutique consulting firm specializing in open source and social enterprise. And he was awarded the prestigious Shuttleworth Fellowship to explore open source approaches to philanthropy. Mark serves on the Mozilla Foundation Board and is a past board member at Peer-to-Peer University, World Bank Solutions for Youth Employment Consortium, the Toronto Arts Foundation, Connected Learning Alliance, Telefonica’s Think Big, the Association for Progressive Communications, Wild Canada and rabble.ca. Mark lives in Toronto. He holds a BA in the History of Community Media from the University of Toronto.