Social network draws ire for lack of female representation on board as it sets off on path to flotation
A message for Mark Zuckerberg: Forget the feature-length movie you didn’t care for, the profiles flattering and otherwise in virtually every business magazine, online scrutiny of your dietary habits and dissection of your college dorm business deals. You’re about to enter the spotlight for real.
When a company undertakes one of the largest IPOs in history, it becomes a vehicle for all sorts of activists, onlookers, observers and commentators (this writer included) to make whatever case he or she deems important.
In fact, it’s already happened. Before the virtual ink was dry on Facebook’s long-anticipated S1 filing, the IPO was described as ‘no friend to women’ because all seven members of the board are men.
‘Outrageous’
‘It’s outrageous that Facebook, representing a new genre of American company, could not find a single woman director,’ writes Malli Gero, principal of 2020 Women on Boards, the Boston-based organization leading a campaign to achieve 20 percent female board representation by the end of the decade.
Citing a Pew Research Center study, Gero says Facebook’s all-male board ignores ‘the fact that a majority of its users are women.’
According to a 2010 study by Pew’s Internet & American Life Project, Facebook is the dominant social network platform, with 92 percent participation among users of social media, and 56 percent of social media users across all platforms are female.
Stakeholder expectations to grow
IROs know how easily any company’s genuine milestones or achievements can be overshadowed by external events.
The Facebook saga illustrates how Silicon Valley’s reputation for innovation, matched by an atmosphere of testosterone-fueled hoopla and hype, still exists in the larger world of stakeholder expectations.
Zuckerberg and Facebook have changed the world from Cambridge to Cairo with what they brought to the marketplace.
Now they are being asked to change the world by how they behave in the market – and they’ll have lots of people watching. Welcome to the world of public company scrutiny.
