Re: Welcome Grace Rachmany as DIF ED!

Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much everyone for the warm welcome. It is good to feel that I
am among friends and colleagues who I have met IRL and who are supportive
of DIF and our shared trajectory.
I was definitely thrown right into the deep end, spending last week at
TrusTech in Paris, which is why I didn't answer sooner.

Like all of those who have commented, I have a tremendous amount to be
grateful for when it comes to how Kim has delivered on DIF's mission. In
particularly, I'm impressed by the "operational excellence" aspects of DIF.
Not only are the processes automated and well-managed, but everything is
properly documented and the handoff is super smooth. Once when asked what
the Operations team does, I said that if you need to ask, they are doing it
right. Clearly, that is the case in how DIF runs today. Kim is an
extraordinary leader, and a hard act to follow, so I hope to live up to the
expectations.

In regards to Manu's comments, yes, indeed. I remember meeting you at the
Great RWOT Abduction incident mentioned in my blog post. I hope that at
least one of the considerations in choosing me for the role is the recent
work some friends and I have been doing in specifying Verifiable Community
<http://github.com/SidewaysEarth/VerifiableCommunity/>, which would be a
pattern where people can have identities issued by local organizations of
which they are already members. As a basic human right, Freedom of
Association means that people have choices in terms of their belonging. I
share your concerns about how digital identity can be used as a tool of
power. It points to the potential of having a role in public education that
is slightly broader than DIF perhaps imagined, but still fits firmly within
DIF's charter.

For the next few months, I will be talking to as many people as possible
about how they see DIF's role, how DIF has (or hasn't) lived up to
its charter, and where they would like to see the organization going in the
next few years. I don't want to be hasty in deciding on a strategy,
especially because I come from outside the digital identity community.
There's a lot to learn! During this month, I'll be focusing on
conversations with the Steering Committee and Working Group chairs within
DIF, and then in January I'll be opening up my calendar to everyone who
wants to chat on relevant topics. I recognize that my role is not just to
serve DIF, but to serve all humans who depend on these technologies,
whether for their own identity or for the identities of the non-human
entities operating on humans' behalf.

I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation online and IRL!

Grace

On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 5:35 PM Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Very well put, Manu. A huge +1.
>
> =Drummond
>
> On Thu, Dec 4, 2025 at 6:01 AM Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 10:23 AM Kim Hamilton Duffy
>> <kim@identity.foundation> wrote:
>> > I'm incredibly excited to announce Grace Rachmany as the new ED of DIF!
>> Many of you are probably familiar with her and her work, and we are
>> incredibly excited about Grace taking the reins. She will be a fantastic
>> steward and leader of DIF.
>> >
>> > Read our announcement here:
>> https://blog.identity.foundation/welcome-grace-rachmany/
>>
>> First, thank you Kim for your many years of leadership and service to
>> the community. First to the W3C Credentials Community Group, helping
>> to form and shape the vibrant community that we have today... those
>> early days weren't easy and you handled the challenge with the deep
>> commitment and care that was required back then (and continues to be
>> needed now). Then,  for your work over the past several years to
>> further align DIF with SSI and some of the principles that many of us
>> still believe in and are actively fighting for. That journey as well
>> has not been without its challenges and the world is better off for
>> your leadership and efforts at DIF.
>>
>> I'm glad to hear that you'll still be engaged in the community as you
>> move on to the next stage of your journey, whatever that might be.
>>
>> Grace, welcome to the community! :)
>>
>> I believe I met you at RWOT many years ago, albeit very briefly and
>> remember being impressed with your commitment to doing what is right
>> for individuals when it comes to their representation in an
>> increasingly digital world. I read your blog post with great interest.
>> One of the things I worry about is how difficult it is to find leaders
>> like Kim (and others that have taken leadership roles both at CCG and
>> DIF), whose values are aligned with many of the SSI principles. It
>> sounds like DIF has found that in you.
>>
>> More recently, I've been dismayed (as have others in this community)
>> about how governments are adopting and deploying some of the
>> technologies and concepts we've worked so hard on over the years. The
>> direction the EU has taken with "government wallets" is one example of
>> this corruption of vision; centralization creep, the rush to deploy
>> privacy-harming technologies as a consequence of badly thought through
>> regulation, backroom dealing in closed meetings, and the rejection of
>> many SSI principles, are an example of the sorts of concerns some of
>> us in the community have.
>>
>> If there is one thing that differentiates DIF and the CCG from some of
>> these other initiatives, it's the focus on empowering individuals and
>> not making the individual a result of a governmental process.
>>
>> That is not to say that the technologies we build here are
>> anti-government, quite the opposite, they can be used in ways that
>> empower both individuals and governments... but we've seen what's
>> happened over the past several years with digital credentials and not
>> all of these initiatives are in the best interest of the individual.
>> "Is this primarily serving the needs of a government, or a person
>> living within that government?"... "Do you  truly have the freedom to
>> opt-out without being coerced?"... "Is there true market
>> competition?"... "Do you really have a choice of digital wallet?"...
>> "Are you beholden to a specific software vendor?"... these are the
>> questions that have uncomfortable answers today.
>>
>> I look forward to hearing more about your vision for DIF, and this
>> community, over the coming months. Know that many of us support the
>> same things you believe in. The hardest part of all of this is
>> continuing to work toward a vision that empowers individuals in a
>> meaningful way, that does not rely on centralization and coercion to
>> do so, and that will positively impact the millions of people that use
>> these technologies today, and the hundreds of millions of people these
>> technologies will impact in the future.
>>
>> -- manu
>>
>> --
>> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>>
>>