23andMe appoints three new board members following abrupt resignations
Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ Album Taste & Tech Dinner in Atherton, California, on March 15, 2023.
Kelly Sullivan | Getty Photographs Leisure | Getty Photographs
23andMe appointed 3 fresh isolated administrators to its board, the corporate introduced Tuesday, one age upcoming all seven of its earlier administrators hastily resigned.
The fresh board contributors are Andre Fernandez, the previous well-known monetary officer of WeWork; Jim Frankola, the previous CFO of the undertaking cloud corporate Cloudera; and Mark Jensen, a tech guide and previous managing spouse at Deloitte, in step with a leave. The one alternative board member is 23andMe’s co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki.
Fernandez, Frankola and Jensen will all handover at the board’s audit committee and reimbursement committee, the corporate stated. Jensen will operate because the top isolated director and chair of the reimbursement committee, moment Fernandez will chair the audit committee.
“I am excited to welcome these three experienced directors to the 23andMe Board, and looking forward to working with them,” Wojcicki stated within the leave.
23andMe’s earlier isolated administrators introduced their depart in a letter to Wojcicki in September, writing that they disagreed together with her in regards to the “strategic direction for the company.”
The genetic-testing corporate, as soon as valued at $6 billion, has struggled because it went family in 2021 thru a unique function acquisition corporate, or SPAC. Stocks had been soaring under $1 till 23andMe introduced a 1-for-20 opposite conserve break of the Corporate’s Magnificence A and Magnificence B familiar conserve previous this age.
The corporate’s conserve used to be buying and selling round $5 on Tuesday morning.
To backup 23andMe discover possible paths ahead, the former isolated administrators at the corporate’s board shaped a unique committee in past due March. Wojcicki submitted an offer to remove the corporate personal in July, nevertheless it used to be unwelcome by way of the particular committee, partly as it lacked dedicated financing and didn’t lend a top class to the endmost value of 40 cents in step with percentage on the occasion.
The administrators gave Wojcicki the chance to post a extra appropriate revised proposal, however they didn’t obtain one, in step with the September letter.
“We believe that it is in the best interests of the Company’s shareholders that we resign from the Board rather than have a protracted and distracting difference of view with you as to the direction of the Company,” they wrote.
Within the weeks following the board contributors’ departures, Wojcicki has again and again stated she extra dedicated to taking the corporate personal.