Education
Moscow State University. University of California, Berkeley.
Moscow State University. University of California, Berkeley.
Born in Moscow, she emigrated to the United States as a teenager and in 1999 began working as a software engineer in California, where she co-authored several software patents and also founded a technology marketing company. A specialist in enterprise software, she was chief information officer and vice president of engineering at SugarCRM Incorporated. before succeeding Sue Gardner at the Wikimedia Foundation in 2014. On February 25, 2016, Tretikov tendered her resignation, effective March 31, as a result of the WMF"s controversial Knowledge Engine project
Tretikov is of Russian and Swedish heritage.
Her father is a mathematician and her mother was a filmmaker. After moving to New York at age 15, she learned English while waitressing and attended the University of California, Berkeley, but left before completing her degree.
Her majors were computer science and art, and she researched machine learning. In 1999, Tretikov started her professional career at Sun Microsystems, as an engineer at the Sun-Netscape Alliance, where she worked on the Java server.
She then founded GrokDigital, a technology marketing company, and was later appointed chief information officer and vice president of engineering at SugarCRM Incorporated.
She has co-authored several patents in intelligent data mapping and dynamic language applications.
Tretikov was appointed executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation in May 2014 in succession to Sue Gardner, and took up the post on June 1, 2014. Her appointment was controversial among Wikipedia volunteers, as she had edited Wikipedia only once before her appointment. Tretikov is also on the boards of OpenEd and Rackspace and is an advisor to the board of Zamurai Corporation.
Tretikov resigned from the Wikimedia Foundation, as a result of the WMF"s controversial Knowledge Engine project with her last day being March 31, 2016.
On March 16, 2016, it was announced that Tretikov has been invited by the World Economic Forum to join its "Young Global Leaders" community.