By CultureBanx Team
- Peggy Alford will become 1st African American woman to join Facebook’s board
- Facebook’s workforce and leadership is only 3% black
Social media giant Facebook (FB -0.28%) is doing a board reshuffle and now PayPal (PYPL -1.33%) senior Vice President Peggy Alford will have a seat at the table. Alford will become the first Black woman and the second Black person to join the company’s nine-member board. She’s coming onboard during a strong cultural shift at the social media giant that has been embroiled in scandals.
Why This Matters: The call for diversification in corporate America is as pronounced as ever. Last year former American Express (AXP +1.71%) CEO Kenneth Chenault became the first African American to be appointed to Facebook’s board of directors. For Alford, she will need to tap into her decades worth of leadership experience at some of Silicon Valley’s premiere companies like eBay (EBAY +0.03%) to help Facebook deal with its plethora of public missteps. She can also use her wealth of knowledge that comes from serving as a board director at the Macerich Company (MAC +0.97%), a real estate investment trust.
Alford’s impending board arrival coincides with longtime directors Netflix (NFLX +1.58%) CEO Reed Hastings and Erskine Bowles leaving their posts. Both of them have served on Facebook’s board since 2011 but will not be re-nominated next month.
Alford will need to tap into her decades worth of leadership experience at some of Silicon Valley’s premiere companies like eBay to help Facebook deal with its plethora of public missteps
Facebook’s leadership is only 3% black and they are following the trend for diversification in corporate America. J.P. Morgan (JPM -0.73%), Uber, Netflix, and Etsy (ETSY -1.32%) all added African American female executives to their boards in Q1 of 2018. Ursula Burns, Mellody Hobson, Susan Rice, and Edith Cooper all joined the respective boards of these companies.
What’s Next: There’s research showing the many benefits of diversity in thought among corporate leadership. Specifically, African American women saw an increase in board seats of 26.2% in 2018, in both the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500, according to Deloitte. Alford’s nomination is expected to be confirmed at the company’s annual meeting on May 30th.
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