Facebook's Diversity Officer Says Departure Of Three Female Executives 'Is Not A Bad Thing'
Facebook has seen three executive positions held by women go within a month, but the company’s Chief Diversity Officer, Maxine Williams, doesn’t feel it’s a bad thing.
While discussing Facebook’s annual diversity report, Williams commented on the departures, noting the female leaders had moved on to great positions, meaning it wasn’t a bad thing that they had left, and she also noted that the company has plans to continue hiring more women and minorities overall.
“We’re sad to see them go, but as we think about the ‘who’ of leadership in the world and in corporations, it’s not such a bad thing that they are able to lead whole companies,” Williams said in an interview with CNBC.
Fidji Simo, former head of the Facebook app left to become CEO of Instacart. Deborah Liu, former Facebook Vice President of app commerce left to become the CEO of Ancestry, and Carolyn Everson, the former global ads chief has also announced her departure.
Williams is sure Facebook will retain more leaders and is happy to see the women move to high positions.
“All of those people were people who were retained at Facebook for more than 10 years, which is unusual in a corporate context."
“I don’t see us as not retaining. I see us as we have long retention, and the experience of being at Facebook gives people the opportunity to do so many other things. I think it’s really cool that two of those three left to become CEO of something,” Williams said in the interview.
Facebook saw an increase of leadership positions held by women from 34.2% in 2020 to 35.5% in 2021, according to the annual diversity report.
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