Marketing Pilgrim

Facebook now has someone to watch the cash register as they roll toward setting revenue records for the company. After a several months long search, Facebook has found their man according to cnet

Facebook has named former Genentech executive David Ebersman to the office of chief financial officer. He replaces Gideon Yu, whose departure was announced at the end of March.

“We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “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.”

Facebook recently secured $200 million from Russian company Digital Sky Technologies so the importance of having someone in place to make sure that Facebook is moving toward profitability became even more evident. Ebersman will take the reigns in September following about 10 years at Genentech. What apparently was most attractive about his resume was the experience he had at a public company that grew rapidly and was purchased by a much larger company.

The company (Genentech) was sold to Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Hoffmann-LaRoche in March, shortly before Ebersman stepped down.

Ok, so let’s connect the dots. Facebook is growing rapidly and has recently put revenue projections for this year at close to double what was originally thought. They do have an eye on being public (when is the real question) AND they would likely be purchased by a bigger fish (at one that could swallow a Facebook recently valued at around $10 billion). Sounds a lot like the path that Genentech took while Ebersman had the top financial position with the company.

Hey, we Internet folks are never ones to speculate but ………

Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!

Share this post