UCSF Chancellor Named to Facebook Board of Directors

UC San Francisco Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, is joining Facebook’s board of directors.

Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH

The Menlo Park-based social networking company announced this week that Desmond-Hellmann was elected to the board.

"I've always been drawn to organizations that do groundbreaking work," Desmond-Hellmann says. "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."

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg welcomed her to the board.

"Sue has a great track record of building and managing a diverse set of organizations, so her insights will be valuable as we continue to expand into new areas," Zuckerberg says.  "Her experience shaping public policy and operating public companies fits well with the rest of the board and will make us an even stronger company."

The chancellor will serve alongside current board members Zuckerberg; Marc L. Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz; Erskine B. Bowles, president emeritus of University of North Carolina; James W. Breyer of Accel Partners; Donald E. Graham, chairman and CEO of The Washington Post Company; Reed Hastings, chairman and CEO of Netflix; Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook; and Peter A. Thiel of Founders Fund.

Desmond-Hellmann also sits on the board of directors for Procter & Gamble, and she serves as a trustee for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research organization. Before taking the helm of UCSF in 2009, she was president of product development at the biotechnology pioneer, Genentech, where she was responsible for Genentech's pre-clinical and clinical development, process research and development, business development and product portfolio management.