Facebook shareholders want Mark Zuckerberg out as board chairman

It would seem founders are not having it good either in India or globally. It is now the turn of Facebook’s Founder Mark Zuckerberg to face heat over his removal from the company’s board.

According to media reports, a consumer watchdog, SumofUS.org, has proposed for Zuckerberg’s ouster from the company’s board of directors. The members of SumofUS are also shareholders of Facebook, and reportedly want to limit Zuckerberg’s powers in the company by bringing in an independent chairperson who would “oversee the executives of the company, improve corporate governance and set a more accountable, pro-shareholder agenda.”

About 33,000 people have signed the petition “requesting Facebook improve its corporate citizenship.” But, only 1,500 out of 33,000 are actual shareholders in Facebook.

Referring to the petition, VentureBeat reported that “the combination of two roles, as the CEO and board Chair, in a single person weakens corporation governance, which can harm shareholder value. Independent board leadership is sorely needed at Facebook following its decision in 2016 to approve a new capital structure.”

In his Facebook post on February 1, Zuckerberg had announced the company’s quarterly results and gave an update on the company’s progress building a global community.

He wrote: “Our community now has almost 1.9 billion people, including 1.2 billion people active every day. More than 65 million small businesses use Facebook to connect with their customers.

“Our biggest focus continues to be putting video first across our family of apps. More than 150 million people now use Instagram Stories every day. We've launched our new camera in Messenger and have started rolling it out in Facebook as well.

“We have a lot more work ahead as we continue building the community we all want -- one that is informed, supportive, safe, and a force for good in the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey to connect the world.”

Closer home, there is a raging debate on the role of startup founders as CEOs vis-a-vis external CEOs after Flipkart instated an external CEO. Early this year, the Indian e-commerce giant’s founders were eased out of their roles, when its largest investor Tiger Global brought in an external CEO to manage the company.