Facebook $META chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg told lawmakers from the Congressional Black Caucus that the company would be adding an African-American to its board of directors. In a closed-door meeting on Thursday (Oct. 12), part of her tour of Washington DC as Facebook is under scrutiny for its role in Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Sandberg told the politicians that the company has a specific person in mind, but did not reveal their identity or a timeline, The Wall Street Journal reported (paywall).
Facebook’s current board is far from diverse: it counts eight members, all of them white, and mostly top players in Silicon Valley, worth billions of dollars. There are only two women, including Sandberg.
Overall, women constitute only 35% of Facebook’s workforce, blacks 3% and Hispanics 5%, the company said earlier this year, touting modest increases from years past. This year, the company also introduced a requirement that the outside law firms it hires employ at least 33% women and minorities. Among Fortune 500 companies, white women made up 16.4% board members in 2016, and minority women 3.8%. More than 10% of board members were minority men.
Here’s how Facebook’s board currently stacks up:
