Facebook names 1st woman, Sandberg, to board

New York: Facebook's No. 2 executive, Sheryl Sandberg, has become the first woman on the social-networking company's board of directors.

Sandberg was lured from Google in 2008 to become Facebook's chief operating officer. Besides being the first woman, she is the first Facebook executive other than founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the board.

There had been calls for the company to add women to its board ahead of its initial public offering of stock in mid-May.

Facebook Inc named Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg a director, 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.
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.
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.
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.

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Facebook names 1st woman, Sandberg, to board

Sandberg was lured from Google in 2008 to become Facebook\'s chief operating officer.

In announcing the move Monday, Facebook Inc. didn't say whether it came in response to calls to add women. But as the No. 2 to Zuckerberg, she was a logical choice.

"Sheryl has been my partner in running Facebook and has been central to our growth and success over the years," Zuckerberg 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."

Sandberg has been largely responsible for building Facebook's advertising business. She also often serves as Facebook's public face, appearing at conferences and important meetings, while Zuckerberg often prefers to stay in the background and focus on Facebook's products.

Sandberg's appointment is somewhat symbolic. She is already a highly influential executive at Facebook, which is unlikely to change with her board appointment. That said, Zuckerberg still controls Facebook and its board due to his holding more than half of its voting stock.

Sandberg, 42, joins Zuckerberg, Netflix chief Reed Hastings and entrepreneurs Marc Andreessen, James Breyer and Peter Thiel. Also on the board are Donald Graham, CEO of The Washington Post Co., and Erskine Bowles, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina system.

Sandberg also serves on the boards of The Walt Disney Co. and of groups such as Women for Women International. She won't receive any additional financial compensation for the board role.

UltraViolet, a women's rights group that has been asking Facebook to add women to its board, said its campaign "should have never been necessary."

"We hope this is a first step for Facebook and in the coming months more women will be added to their board," UltraViolet co-founder Nita Chaudhary said in a statement. "In addition, we hope that other companies with all-male boards, particularly those in the tech sector, will follow Facebook's lead."

Most large corporations have at least one female board member, but that's where it ends for many of them. According to a report on corporate board gender diversity from corporate advisory firm Glass Lewis, 91 per cent of companies in the S&P 500 had at least one female board member in 2011.

Catalyst, a nonprofit group that advocates for women in business, says in a report that only 16.1 per cent of board seats at Fortune 500 companies were held by women last year.

Companies in the energy and technology sectors had the lowest levels of female board representation, the Glass Lewis report found.