December 15, ISC Meeting
Agenda:
Update from Committees
Committee Reward Update & Next Step
Committee Chair and Vice-chair policy
AOB & Meeting Close
Attendees:
Name
Attendance
Role
Voting Seat (Y/N)
Jack Briggs
Yes
Interim Executive Director
Y
Nick Cook
No
Director - Operations (Interim)
Y
Sheldon Hunt
No
Community Member Seat
Y
Fred Tanaka
Yes
Community Member Seat
Y
Kristijan Kowalsky
Yes
Community Member Seat
Y
Jose Miguel de Gamboa
Yes
Community Member Seat
Y
Elaine Cardenas
No
OSC Chair
Y
Samuel Leathers
Yes
Product Chair
Y
Maureen Wepngogn
Yes
MCC Chair
Y
Megan Hess
Yes
CBC Chair
Y
Kevin Hammond
Yes
TSC Chair
Y
Tim Harrison
No
GMC Chair
Y
Nicolas Cerny
No
CCC Chair
Y
Christian Taylor
No
Head of OSO
N
Lorenzo Bruno
Yes
Secretary of CPC
N
Bosko Majdanac
Yes
Secretary of TSC
N
Abhik Nag
Yes
Secretary of MCC
N
Lloyd Duhon
Yes
Secretary of Budget Committee
N
Larisa Mcfarlane
No
Secretary of CCC
N
Terence McCutcheon
No
Secretary of OSC
N
Lara Bonasorte
No
Secretary of GMC
N
Additional Attendees:
Thiago Nunes - Observer
Wes Perkinson - Observer
Discussion/Actions
1. Committee Updates
Budget Committee
The committee is preparing documentation for the new 2026 budget process. The first step — socializing the Net Change Limit (NCL) — has been approved and will begin circulating shortly, with the expectation of submitting the NCL governance action on-chain early in the new year.
Product Committee
The Vision & Strategy package is progressing and is expected to be submitted on-chain this week. A pull request including the initial KPI set has been submitted and is under Product Committee review.
Technical Steering Committee (TSC)
Key updates included:
The Chain Incident Analysis Group is preparing a preliminary factual report by year-end; follow-up work will continue in early 2026.
The Hard Fork Working Group meets again this week.
A hard fork will not occur in 2025; teams are targeting systematic rollout beginning in early 2026.
Plutus team is addressing reported issues; a test version may be available by year-end.
Executive Team Update
A major update from the Executive Team focused on governance progress and preparations for the 2026 cycle:
The Constitutional Committee update action is expected to ratify within hours, restoring quorum and enabling pending governance actions to proceed.
The Vision & Strategy submission will provide a baseline for 2026 planning, with expanded KPIs expected next year.
The Net Change Limit update will be socialized this week and targeted for on-chain submission in January, enabling a renewed NCL from February 2026.
The executive update also outlined Intersect’s three functional areas going into 2026:
Member Services – supporting ecosystem challenges such as KPIs and long-term vision.
Technical Coordination – ramping up significantly in 2026, covering node diversity, incident management, protocol upgrades (Node v11 around March 2026; next era upgrade potentially Q4 2026+), release management, and security coordination.
Administration – continued oversight of treasury-funded contracts (~270M ADA), multi-year budgets, and integration programs.
The team emphasized a push toward predictability in governance and reducing unnecessary voting cycles. A proposal for two-year committee terms (instead of annual terms) is being developed for 2026.
Additional Questions from Members
Members asked about the timeline for the new permanent Executive Director. An update is expected before Christmas, pending completion of several board-level priorities.
2. Committee Reward Distribution
An update was provided on year-end manual reward processing:
57 committee members completed all required steps and will receive payment today.
Fewer than 10 individuals have incomplete steps and will be able to claim rewards through the Member Area from January onward.
15 people declined rewards.
A confirmation email will be sent to everyone receiving payouts.
3. Chair & Vice-Chair Election Policy
A draft policy — developed through the Governance Working Group — was shared with ISC for review. Objectives of the policy include:
Establishing a clear, flexible framework for chair and vice-chair elections across committees.
Ensuring committees can run elections when needed (e.g., vacancy, end of term, new candidates).
Maintaining consistency with existing election infrastructure and thresholds.
ISC members were asked to review the document in detail; formal approval will resume in January.
A related policy on extending committee terms to two years is also in early drafting and will be prioritized in January.
4. Other Business
A member raised two ongoing requests:
Publish an updated organizational chart that includes not only staff but also committees and working groups, with clear contact points.
Establish a long-term ISC agenda to provide visibility on major topics throughout the year.
Updates provided:
The current org chart is available on the Knowledge Base and will be fully updated in January once the organizational restructuring is finalized.
A more comprehensive member/committee directory is planned for early 2026.
The ISC long-term agenda will be prepared and presented in early January.
5. Next Steps / Actions
Circulate and review the Chair & Vice-Chair Election Policy draft; provide feedback before January.
Intersect Governance WG: Continue drafting the two-year committee term policy.
Update the organizational chart once restructuring is done
Prepare ISC long-term planning - to be presented in January.
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