Anne McCarthy Joins the PHP Foundation Board

Automattic now has a representative on the PHP Foundation Governing Board. Anne McCarthy, Automattic’s Architecture and Open Source Director, joined the board as the company’s platinum sponsor representative.

The appointment links two projects with a long technical history: WordPress is built on PHP, while the PHP Foundation directs funding toward work on PHP core. McCarthy has said the role gives them an opportunity to strengthen the connection between the PHP and WordPress communities.

## What Automattic’s board seat represents

Automattic helped found the PHP Foundation and holds its platinum sponsorship tier, which begins at $100,000 annually. The foundation currently funds 12 developers who work on PHP core.

The 10-member Governing Board includes representatives from JetBrains, Symfony, Tideways, Private Packagist, Tighten, and Perforce. Former WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden is also a board member.

The board voted unanimously to appoint McCarthy. The foundation characterized their addition as combining technical expertise with a people-centered approach.

## McCarthy’s open source background

McCarthy joined Automattic in 2014 as a Happiness Engineer and has 15 years of open source experience, including 12 years at the company. They are also leading the WordPress 7.1 release cycle, which is scheduled for release on August 19.

McCarthy traces an early connection to PHP to their time as a student in the ITS department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kevin Coletta and William Earnhardt introduced PHP by working through it on a whiteboard; Coletta is now a Senior Full Stack Engineer at Vox Media, and Earnhardt is Senior Director of Software Engineering at Bluehost.

McCarthy described joining the board as a way to support the people who have maintained PHP and projects built with it. They also want to help bring a new generation of contributors into the PHP ecosystem.

## Why PHP and WordPress developers should watch this

PHP core work affects the runtime beneath WordPress, WooCommerce, plugins, and themes. A board representative with active WordPress release leadership creates a direct connection between Automattic’s WordPress work and the organization funding PHP core developers.

For developers, the immediate practical step is to keep tracking supported PHP versions and WordPress core compatibility as WordPress 7.1 approaches. McCarthy’s board role puts WordPress perspectives closer to PHP Foundation governance, while PHP core funding remains focused on the language and the developers who maintain it.