Facebook Inc
named Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg a director on Monday,
elevating the first woman to a board that includes seven men.
For years one of the most vocal
critics of the gender imbalance in Silicon Valley's executive ranks,
Sandberg, 42, joined Facebook in 2008 and played a central role in
guiding the social networking company to its $16 billion IPO in May.
Her
promotion comes as Facebook seeks to cultivate a more mature image as
opposed to the college dorm-room startup reputation that has dogged the
company since Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg founded it in 2004.
"Sheryl
has been my partner in running Facebook and has been central to our
growth and success over the years," Zuckerberg, 28, said in a statement.
"Her understanding of our mission and long-term opportunity, and her
experience both at Facebook and on public company boards makes her a
natural fit for our board."
Still,
even after Facebook elevated Sandberg on Monday, the composition of its
board remains a continuing point of scrutiny for a young company that
has touched countless industries and boasts close to a billion users
from every corner of the world.
The
California State Teachers' Retirement System, the second-largest
largest pension fund in the United States, which owns 36,922 shares of
Facebook, applauded Sandberg's promotion, but urged the company to
"continue diversifying the board toward greater independence and
representation of the Company's user base."
Apart
from Sandberg, the company's board is made up of seven Caucasian men,
largely Silicon Valley insiders aligned closely with Zuckerberg. They
include Zuckerberg himself; venture capitalists James W. Breyer, Marc
Andreessen and Peter Thiel; Washington Post Co chairman, Donald E.
Graham; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; and Erskine Bowles, a former White
House chief of staff and the University of North Carolina president
emeritus.
"We are optimistic
Facebook is on its way to further expanding the board while
simultaneously creating the diversity and independence we think is
important to the future sustainability of this vibrant company," said
Jack Ehnes, CEO of the California State Teachers' Retirement System.
But, he added, "We're not there yet."
Prior
to joining Facebook to lead its business operations, Sandberg worked at
Google, where she was credited with building the search advertising
division into a massively lucrative cornerstone of the web giant's
business.
She has been tasked with
stoking similar growth at Facebook, which claimed $3.7 billion in
revenue last year, but is under pressure to justify its $70 billion
valuation in the public markets.
At
the same time, Facebook hopes the promotion of one of corporate
America's most high-profile women will go some way to allay over its own
gender issues, especially given Sandberg's advocacy on the subject.
In
February, before Facebook went public, the teachers' retirement system
openly urged the company to diversify its board to include women and
said then the makeup of the all-male panel was "disappointing."
In April, the women's rights group UltraViolet held a protest outside Facebook's New York offices over the same issue.
The
Menlo Park-based company faced embarrassment as recently as last week
when the Wall Street Journal published advance excerpts of a memoir by
Katherine Losse, an early employee, who recounted being harassed and
propositioned by male co-workers until Sandberg intervened when she came
onboard.
In recent years,
Sandberg's clout within Facebook has been unquestioned while she has
also served as its public face, often in place of the sometimes
socially-awkward Zuckerberg, who has focused on improving Facebook's
product.
Meanwhile, Sandberg has represented the company at events like the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where she led a panel on women's advancement in January.
A
former chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers during the
Clinton administration, Sandberg holds seats on the board of Walt
Disney Co and several non-profit organizations.
"Facebook
is working every day to make the world more open and connected," she
said in a statement. "It's a mission that I'm deeply passionate about
and I feel fortunate to be part of a company that is having such a
profound impact in the world."
Under
Sandberg's stewardship, Facebook navigated its rocky IPO in May, but
still faces a litany of growing pains, chief among them are its regular
brushes with privacy controversies that threaten to erode the eight
year-old service's popularity.
On
Monday, the social network was again subject to fresh accusations that
it had tampered with user privacy by changing the email contact listed
for every user to a facebook.com address without notification.
Facebook defended the move, saying it was part of a broader, earlier effort to enhance "consistency" to the service.
"As
we announced back in April, we've been updating addresses on Facebook
to make them consistent across our site," a Facebook spokeswoman said.
"In addition to everyone receiving an address, we're also rolling out a
new setting that gives people the choice to decide which addresses they
want to show on their timelines."
Facebook
shares closed down 3 percent at $32.06 on Monday, still more than 15
percent off of its May offering price despite a rebound in recent weeks.
Source: http://www.reuters.com
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