Need signing contact

[Rob van der Veer]

Dear Board,

Apologies for reaching out directly, but we urgently need support.

Would someone from the Board be available to act as signatory for a venue contract for an OWASP AI Exchange event? The event is funded through our own sponsor contributions and falls under OWASP governance.

We are organizing the AI Security Policy Forum in Washington, DC, bringing together organizations such as OWASP, NIST, MITRE, CSA, COSAI, CIS, SANS, and policymakers. At this moment, we risk losing the venue reservation due to the absence of a timely signature. Andrew has not been reachable, and while Starr is doing her best to assist, we have not yet been able to resolve this.

More broadly, this situation reflects a pattern of slow turnaround that is beginning to affect our ability to execute. For example, we currently have a sponsor-related ticket that has been open for 45 days.

I may be missing context, but from our perspective, this is becoming difficult to manage. The project team is investing significant time and effort to secure sponsors, develop content, and organize high-impact initiatives. Timely operational support is essential to make this successful.

Could you please advise on how we can resolve the immediate issue, and how to prevent similar delays going forward?

Kind regards,
Rob van der Veer

AI Exchange, OpenCRE

[Steve Springett]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for escalating and making us aware of the situation. As you may know, OWASP staff recently lost two employees, so the Foundation is currently understaffed. Ricardo and I have escalated the issue to Andrew directly.

When does the contract need to be signed by?

The Board does not have signing authority for contracts. So we'll need to work with Andrew on this. 

—

Steve Springett Leader, OWASP CycloneDX and Dependency-Track Leader and Co-author, OWASP SCVS Chair, OWASP CycloneDX and Ecma TC54 Chair, OWASP Global Board of Directors

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[Rob van der Veer]

Thank you Steve, for looking into this and escalating.

I am sorry to hear about the employees lost. It is news to me. I hope for everyone that you soon get reinforcements. It must be stressful.

To answer your question: The contract text was created March 13, 16 days ago and once we let them know the OWASP contact details, the contract was sent for signing 10 days ago. By now, the venue is in their right to commit to another client in case there is interest in the meeting room. The longer we wait, the bigger this risk. 

Hope to see some of you in Vienna!

Best,

Rob

[Andrew van der Stock]

Hi Rob and Aruneesh

First off, my heartfelt apologies for not getting this sorted before now. I'm going to send you both a separate message on how to get my attention when something needs to be done urgently. 

I've searched my Inbox for Docusign and similar signing requests, but do not see one. Can you please re-send any contracts that need to be signed to my email address? If it's Docusign, it will have expired, so I need a new one. 

Lastly, we've had a fair few things fall through the cracks in the last month, but having things in Jira has really helped us with our workflows and making sure things aren't lost in mailboxes here or there. If you can log tickets with contracts to be signed, this is visible to all of our folks at the Foundation, and I look every day at them. This can help immensely with ensuring that you get timely attention to contracts that need to be signed, rather than stuck in one person's inbox. 

thanks,

Andrew

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[Rob van der Veer]

Thanks Andrew,

We felt a little bit left alone, but very much appreciate the apology and the situation. 

I just asked the venue to resend the docusign and made a ticket (I thought that was only for invoices, sorry): https://owasporg.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/OSD-7184

Thanks in advance.

Best,

Rob