After one year and a half as the OCA Executive Director, Virginie Dewulf will step down from this position mid-November 2025.
Virginie has been a functional analyst on Odoo Community since 2015. She was an OCA Board Member between 2021 and 2024. In April 2024, she resigned from her Board Position and from her job at Coop IT Easy in order to become the first OCA Executive Director at the Board’s request.
Why resign now? Let’s hear from Virginie herself.
“The adventure as the OCA first Executive Director was really intense. I learned a lot about myself and the OCA community and I am very grateful for the trust that the Board had given me. I now feel it is the right time for me to step down. It is related to various reasons:
Before the start of my work for the OCA, I had started a process to become a certified accountant in Belgium. I am now starting 3 years of internship, which will require a heavy workload and the preparation of exams each year. This orientation matches my goals to be active in the social economy sector in Belgium.
The last year working for the OCA demanded a lot of energy from me.
The creation of this new role brought a lot of changes in the way the Board acted and finding a new rhythm required a lot of discussions and time.
By the end of 2023, the Board wanted to see big changes in the organization. In the following months, many ideas were discussed but a clear direction was hard to find, including during the 2024 OCA Days. After the event, It felt like starting all over again with the new elected Board in 2025. We ended up with a dedicated Working Group and a coaching with Emily Omier, expert in open source companies, who helped us build a clear strategic plan. That was really helpful, but it took us 1,5 years of discussions to get there!
In 2025 started heated discussions in the OCA contributors community regarding the bank payment features. I tried to help and many hours of my time were dedicated to formal and informal discussions around it and it drained the remaining of my energy.
Looking back, I think that the OCA as an organization has to clarify the
goals of the evolution that the Board intends to make. We need to get
full approval from the members and the contributors. In a second phase,
the governance and enforcement of our community rules need to be
improved and set in motion in order to achieve the vision of the
association. In parallel to all this, the financial stability of the
association needs to be found. It is a challenge to convince companies
to sponsor the OCA while there are so many internal challenges at the
same time.
Acting in a respectful way and in order to keep the OCA strong will require courage and much energy, from many people in the community. I don’t have the energy for that anymore right now. But I will be around to help on the continuity of the actions I have contributed to initiate if needed, of course!”
A look back
In 2013, the Odoo Community Association was created in order to help Odoo integrators build and share their new Odoo features under a common umbrella.
In the past years, the OCA was able to initiate a new cycle thanks to the new internal team composed of an Executive Director (Virginie Dewulf), a General Secretary and Event Manager (Rebecca Gellatly) and a Content Creator and Training Mangager (Julie LeBrun who joined early 2025).
For example:
A new strategic plan has been decided and actions to make it happen are in motion (a crowdfunding platform, a great profile page for companies sponsoring the OCA → take a look at the current RFQ’s)
The added value to the Memberships: as a member, you can now attend regular free webinars and access training at a reduced price
Our contributors are better recognized through monthly ranking shared with Dixmit and an increased presence on the social media
An improved line of communication with Odoo S.A., leading to 3 OCA talks during the 2025 Odoo XP and an OCA Zone.
The creation of Working Groups to get more people involved in real initiatives (less talking, more actions)
The launch of the “basic” OpenUpgrade scripts through the financing of a small team of contributors. We have caught up on version 17 and 18 in a few months and the branch 19 is now initiated, before the official 19 release by Odoo. This is a first in the OCA history!
The current challenges of the OCA
The OCA faces many challenges altogether, like any non-profit and open source organization:
Securing revenues to sustain the new initiatives and the existence of the internal team. We are looking for hundreds of Sponsors in the coming years.
Improving the internal governance and rules of the organization, bridging the gap between the community of the contributors and the legal form of the association (Members/Delegates/Boards).
For example, the duration of the Board Member mandate should be adapted to bring more stability and ensure a regular renewal of the members (limitation in the number of mandates)Improving contributors onboarding and recognition: our contributors are the foundation of our organisation. We want to help newcomers contribute easily and officially recognise our contributors' work!
We are looking for a new Executive Director: Candidate!
You can find the RFQ in the link below.
The OCA Board is open to people applying to only part of the role.
The exact role description could evolve in the coming weeks as the way forward is being debated during the OCA Days 2025 and afterwards by the new elected Board as a General Assembly is on its way to elect a new Board for 2026.
Deadline: 3th October, 2025
