Facebook Hires New CFO

Facebook has announced it's finally appointed a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO), David Ebersman, who served at Genentech, a biotech company, as vice president and CFO for the past three years. The news comes three months after the company fired previous CFO Gideon Yu.

"We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder and CEO. "We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech's CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook."

At the time of Yu's departure there was speculation that he was let go for failing to provide the company with funding at the $15 billion valuation that Microsoft put it at when it purchased a 1.6% stake in the social network for $240 million. Since then Facebook got $200 million for 2 percent of the company from Russian Internet investment company DST, a deal that put its value at $10 billion.

"After meeting with Mark and the rest of the team, I was thoroughly impressed with everyone's drive and sense of purpose to help people connect and share," Ebersman noted. "Mark is constantly pushing the company forward and he's assembled a world-class team that is achieving remarkable results both for its users and as a business. I'm excited to join this effort and this new industry."

Ebersman worked at Genentech for about 15 years, having risen up the ranks to become vice president and CFO in 2006, positions he held until April this year. The company was recently acquired by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche shortly after he left. He will formally start working for Facebook in September 2009.