Facebook has announced that University of California chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann has been elected to the company’s board of directors. As UCSF Chancellor, Desmond-Hellmann looks after the aspects of university and medical center’s strategy and operations. Before that she served as president, production development at the biotechnology pioneer, Genentech. Desmond-Hellman is also on the board of directors for Procter & Gamble as well as she serves as a trustee for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a non-profit medical research organization.
“I’ve always been drawn to organizations that do ground-breaking work,” said Desmond-Hellmann. “Facebook has an ambitious mission and long-term vision of innovation that is transforming how people connect with one another. I’m proud to be part of a company that is serving such an important purpose in the world.”
Counting on Facebook’s board of members, besides Desmond-Hellman, Mark Zuckerberg; Marc L. Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz; Erskine B. Bowles, president emeritus, University of North Carolina; James W. Breyer, Accel Partners; Donald E. Graham, chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company; Reed Hastings, chairman and CEO, Netflix; Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, Facebook; and Peter A. Thiel, Founders Fund.
