Facebook Nominates Alford To Board As Two Other Execs Step Down

Facebook has nominated PayPal executive Peggy Alford to its board, just as longtime directors Reed Hastings and Erskine Bowles prepare to step down.

Bloomberg reported that before joining PayPal in March as senior vice president of core markets, Alford served as chief financial officer and head of operations for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the nonprofit foundation of the social media giant’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

In the meantime, Hastings and Bowles, who have been directors since 2011, are both preparing to step down. Netflix CEO Hastings is leaving as Facebook becomes more competitive with his streaming company, while it is unknown why Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is giving up his position.

Facebook declined to comment, but a filing by the company stated that “it is the general policy of our board of directors not to nominate directors who have reached the age of 72 for re-election, although the board of directors may determine to waive this policy in individual cases.”

The filing also revealed that a vote will be carried out at Facebook’s annual shareholder meeting scheduled on May 30.

Last month Facebook also announced that Chris Cox, its chief product officer, was leaving the company, which some analysts believe could have a negative affect on its shares.

Cox has been at Facebook for 13 years and led the business development team that came up with the WhatsApp strategy. In a research report last month, JPMorgan said Cox played a critical role in creating the social media giant’s mission, value and culture. The Wall Street firm also said Cox was “extremely well-regarded” inside and outside of Facebook.

And Cox isn’t the only executive jumping ship: Chris Daniels, WhatsApp vice president, is also leaving the social media company. In addition, the site also suffered its longest outage last month, which it blamed on a server configuration change that caused a series of issues.