Sheryl Sandberg
Sandberg is now the social network’s first female director and joins Zuckerberg along with other business heavyweights including, venture capitalist Mark Andreeseen; Donald Graham, CEO of Washington Post; Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix.
"Sheryl has been my partner in running Facebook," said CEO Mark Zuckerberg 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’s appointment to Facebook’s board comes after Ultraviolet, a women’s rights group, launched a petition earlier this year asking Facebook to put women on its board.
In an effort to get the social networking company to place a woman on its board before going public, co founder Nita Chaudhary had asked the help of the rights group’s 300,000 members in signing the petition.
"The fact that a company as large as Facebook with a massive global reach does not have a single woman on their board is nothing short of shameful," Chaudhary said in a statement. "Facebook owes it success and makes a ton of money off of its women users."
Earlier this year The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, which is the second-largest pension fund in the United States, publically declared that Facebook should add women to its board.
The CEO of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, Jack Ehnes, said he was "optimistic" that Facebook will continue to create diversity in the company.
Sheryl Sandberg got her career start as an economist with the World Bank. She also served as Chief of Staff for the U.S. Treasury Department and was the vice president of global online sales and operations at Google before joining Facebook.
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