Andreas Gal (pictured), Mozilla’s VP Mobile and Firefox OS expert, has been promoted to CTO after six years with the company.

Writing in a blog post, Chris Beard – acting CEO – said “Andreas is widely recognised as an authority on web technology and as a strong technical leader”.

Beard added that Gal would continue in his VP Mobile role as the firm continues to focus efforts on “delivering and scaling Firefox OS”.

Gal’s appointment comes only shortly after Brendan Eich, a Mozilla co-founder and previous CTO, resigned as CEO from the non-profit organisation amid controversy surrounding his views on gay marriage. (Back in 2008 he donated $1,000 to Prop 8, a Californian ballot proposition that wanted to ban gay marriage in California. His action became public in 2012.)

Eich’s tenure at the top lasted only 11 days, but he had been Mozilla’s CTO since 2005.

Gal is to have responsibility for leading technical decision making, representing Mozilla externally on technology, and managing R&D programmes.