With the health and economic crisis triggered by the Covid-19, the change went a little unnoticed. But in February and March, Facebook completely overhauled its board of directors. The social network has announced the arrival of four new members, after the departure of five administrators in the previous twelve months.
This level of turnover is exceptional for a company of this size: between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020, the average for the 100 largest listed US companies was 1.2 “Says Courtney Yu, director of research for Equilar, a board of directors specialist.
Of the nine board members in office at the start of 2019, only four are still present: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO; Sheryl Sandberg, the operational director; and two of Facebook’s first investors, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen.
According to a survey published Tuesday April 28 in the ‘Wall Street Journal’, the 35-year-old boss sought to dismiss the critics to further strengthen his power over the company he co-founded sixteen years ago, and of which he has 58% of voting rights thanks to shares each weighing ten votes.
Renew your reputation
This consolidation takes place when Mark Zuckerberg sees the Covid-19 crisis as an opportunity to rebuild his reputation and underline the positive role of his platform, after three difficult years (“fake news”, data processing, etc.). Interviews on Facebook Live of the Governor of California and several renowned scientists, mobilization of the medical foundation he created with his wife Priscilla Chan… the entrepreneur published more on his thread during the first four months of 2020 than on the all of last year, according to Michael Zimmer, professor at Marquette University and administrator of the Zuckerberg Files, an archive of all of his public statements.
Among the recent departures from the board of directors are Kenneth Chenault, the former CEO of American Express, who joined the social network in January 2018. If his appointment to the board of Berkshire Hathaway is the official reason, the financial daily American highlights disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg on the role of the company in the elections, in particular on its refusal to verify the veracity of the declarations of the elected officials. As early as May 2019, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, and Erskine Bowles, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, had left the board of directors. The latter would have been irritated by the way in which Mark Zuckerberg ignored his political advice.
Two new allies
The three new members added in March, including Robert Kimmit, former under-secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush, and Tracy Travis, the financial director of Estée Lauder, are independent. But Mark Zuckerberg has also added two allies in the past 12 months: his friend Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox, and Peggy Alford, former CFO of his philanthropic foundation. “ Mark Zuckerberg builds a bubble around him by not populating his board with truly independent voices Regrets Jonas Kron, vice-president of Trillium Asset Management.
This firm managing $ 3 billion in assets, including $ 10 million in Facebook shares, is preparing to table for the second year in a row a resolution asking Mark Zuckerberg to step down from his post of president to keep only that of director general, at the general meeting on May 27. His proposal had received 68% of positive votes from outside investors last year … not enough against the majority available to Mark Zuckerberg.
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