Ethereum Foundation Leadership Restructure: Tomasz Stańczak Steps Down as Co-Executive Director

On February 13, Tomasz Stanczak announced he will step down as Co-Executive Director (co-ED) of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) at the end of February 2026. Current executive Bastian Aue will serve as interim co-lead alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang. Stanczak noted that during his tenure, the Foundation has outlined a clear future roadmap and strengthened strategic priorities in scalability, privacy, AI integration, and institutional adoption. He added Ethereum is increasingly becoming the "underlying infrastructure for validation and financial transactions," highlighting the ongoing growth of stablecoins and on-chain Real World Assets (RWA) activity. At the protocol level, the Foundation plans to release an integrated roadmap for LEAN Ethereum and core development to guide coordination in 2026 and beyond—while advancing quantum security strategies and decentralized AI standardization. It has also convened discussions with more than 20 Layer 2 teams on scalability and interoperability issues. This personnel change comes roughly 9 months after the Foundation formally launched its Co-Executive Director structure in April 2025. At that time, Aya Miyaguchi took on the Executive Director role, and board members including Vitalik Buterin outlined a strategic direction focused on boosting scalability, optimizing user experience, and ecosystem growth.