Twitter now has one woman on its board of directors
Marjorie Scardino joins the board
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, left, and Mike Gupta, chief financial officer of Twitter, wait for shares to begin trading during the IPO, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013. If Twitter’s bankers and executives were hoping for a surge on the day of the stock’s public debut, they got it. The stock opened at $45.10 a share on its first day of trading, 73 percent above its initial offering price. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
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Diversity hasn’t been Twitter’s strong suit. When the company went public, it was criticized for its board of seven white men, as well as its lack of women in any senior leadership roles.
Today, one woman joined the board of directors. Twitter announced it has appointed Marjorie Scardino.
Scardino’s appointment was announced Thursday on, well, Twitter of course:
We're pleased to welcome @marjscar to our board of directors.
— Twitter (@twitter) December 5, 2013
Scardino comes to the company with a background in publishing. The 66-year-old served as CEO of the education publishing company Pearson plc and, before that, she worked for The Economist Group in various roles, including CEO. She has also served on the board of directors for Nokia Corporation.
Where Scardino seems to lack skills, at least for now, is on Twitter. The new board member joined Twitter as @marjscar on Oct. 20, 2013 and she didn’t tweet until Twitter made its announcement Thursday. Her first tweet:
@twitter Thank you. There couldn't be a more exciting time in Twitter's history to join!
— Marjorie M Scardino (@marjscar) December 5, 2013
When Twitter first went public back in October, its board contained seven white men: former Netscape CFO Peter Currie, former Fox executive Peter Chernin, Benchmark Capital’s Peter Fenton, former Google executive David S. Rosenblatt, co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams, co-founders Jack Dorsey and CEO Dick Costolo. Scardino will become the eighth board member and the only woman who has served on the board of directors since 2007, as this graphic over at Quartz illustrates very well. She is also the first board member to come from print media, without a new media or tech background.
According to Twitter’s securities filing, Scardino joined the Twitter board as of Dec. 4 and will remain in her position until the company’s shareholders meeting in 2014.