Facebook board of directors have a new member on the board, but the newbie member needs no introduction. Erskine Bowles, a former White House Chief of Staff, would accompany CEO and co-founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg and other members who include Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, Donald E. Graham, chairman and CEO of The Washington Post Company, Peter Thiel of Clarium Capital and Founders Fund, as well as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Hastings has even been a member here since the last three months.
Bowles has a long notable history to talk about. From 2006 to 2010, $8 billion University of North Carolina (UNC) system had him as the president. It is just a co-incidence as looking at Facebook’s history, the network was socialized for university students as an exclusive service.
Bowles was even co-chair of President Barack Obama’s bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Additionally, with Morgan Stanley, Cousins Properties, Norfolk Southern, and Belk he holds board position.
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| Erskine Bowles with Bill Clinton |
Bowles was appointed as US President Bill Clinton in 1993 as Administrator of the Small Business Administration. His stepping into the White House was only in 1994, where he was serving as Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton. He was on that post for a period of three years i.e. from 1996 to 1998. Again, he was even a member of the President’s Cabinet, the National Security Council, and the National Economic Council.
For his qualification, Bowles is a graduate of UNC and received his MBA from Columbia University. His professional career got a kick start at Morgan Stanley, after which he was always looking forward to progress as he co-founded the investment bank Bowles, Hollowell, Conner & Co. That was not the last founding act he came up with. Private equity firm Carousel Capital even had him as a co-founder. He had even created the venture capital firm Kitty Hawk Capital. His knowledge base therefore is huge and for Facebook, he would have many important points to jolt down.
For Facebook, Bowles already has a good frame of mind as he stated that the social networking site has had an emergence as that of a transformative force in the world. He had a few lines to praise Mark too in regards to the talent base Zuckerberg has. He said, “It’s no wonder given the talent Mark has put in place and the company’s focus and dedication to its mission. I’m really looking forward to getting to work and helping Facebook however I can.”
Zuckerberg on the other hand was even briefing Bowles’ qualities as he said that Bowles has been holding important roles in not only government, but even in academia and business, which has been of help to Bowles in getting an insight of how one can build organizations and navigate complex issues. Zuckerberg had more to say about the former White House Chief of Staff. He continued saying, “Along with his experience founding companies, this will be very valuable as we continue building new things to help make the world more open and connected.”
It looks like the social networking giant needs the service of Bowles as they are expected to go public next year and Bowles can be a helping hand for Facebook to navigate through the IPO process.