Facebook Nears Complete Board Overhaul With Latest Exit
27 March 2020 - 10:03AM
Dow Jones News
By Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook Inc.'s board suffered another surprise departure with
the exit of Jeffrey D. Zients, leading to an almost complete
shake-up of the directors overseeing the social-media giant.
Facebook on Thursday said Mr. Zients wouldn't seek reelection
after joining the board in 2018 as an independent director. He will
be succeeded by Robert Kimmitt, a lawyer and former deputy
secretary to the Department of the Treasury during the George W.
Bush Administration, the company said after markets closed.
Mr. Zients was generally aligned with Kenneth Chenault, another
Facebook board member that recently gave up his seat, according to
people familiar with the matter. The Wall Street Journal reported
earlier this month that Mr. Chenault resigned from the company's
board following disagreements with founder and Chief Executive Mark
Zuckerberg and other Facebook officials. They differed over
governance at the company and its policies around political
discourse.
Mr. Zients and Mr. Chenault are only the latest in a series of
exits from the tech giant's board. In the past year, the company
has announced the exit of five independent directors -- former
White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, Netflix Inc. CEO Reed
Hastings, former Genentech executive Susan Desmond-Hellmann, former
American Express chief executive Kenneth Chenault and now Mr.
Zients -- replacing them in some instances with people who have
pre-existing social or business relationships with Mr.
Zuckerberg.
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is the longest serving board
member aside from Mr. Zuckerberg. He joined in 2005. Most other
outside directors, aside from Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of the
venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz,who joined in 2009, have
been on the board two years or less.
Mr. Zients, an independent board member, will depart after
Facebook's annual shareholder meeting, typically held in May. The
company said he was vacating his seat "to devote more time to his
business and other professional interests."
Mr. Zients, in a statement, said "I wish Mark, the leadership
team, and the dedicated Facebook employees the best." A spokeswoman
for Mr. Zients declined to comment further on why he was
leaving.
Mr. Zients, a businessman and economic adviser to President
Obama, served as the acting director of the Office of Management
and Budget and was credited with helping fix HealthCare.gov, the
health-care marketplace. After the Obama administration, he became
president of the Cranemere Group, an investment holding company,
and joined Facebook's board in 2018.
His successor, Mr. Kimmitt, is a lawyer who held numerous posts
during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush,
including deputy secretary of the Treasury, under secretary of
state and ambassador to Germany. His name had previously surfaced
as a potential appointee for various jobs within the Trump
administration.
Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com and Deepa
Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 26, 2020 18:48 ET (22:48 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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