Twitter has appointed two new board members: Hugh Johnston, PepsiCo Inc Chief Financial Officer, and Martha Lane Fox, co-founder of travel website lastminute.com.
The tech giant disclosed the new appointments in a recent regulatory filing. According to the filing, members Peter Currie and Peter Chernin’s terms expire at Twitter’s 2016 annual shareholders meeting and they both decided against re-election, at their requests.
Jack Dorsey. co-founder and CEO of Twitter, welcomed the new members via a tweet:
Welcome @Marthalanefox and @hughjohnston to the @Twitter board! And thanks to @plscurrie and @PeterChernin for all your years of service!
— Jack (@jack) April 8, 2016
Lane-Fox, one of Britain’s most successful web pioneers, tweeted that joining Twitter’s board would be the “best job ever”.
“I’m absolutely over the moon to be part of the journey of an iconic company that I love using,” Baroness Lane-Fox told the BBC. “Watch out Silicon Valley – the Brits are coming,” she added.
Hugh Johnston was previously on the board of AOL – before it was sold to Verizon. He said in a tweet that he was joining the Twitter board “to strengthen its power and impact”.
The new appointments follow criticism that Twitter’s board lacks diversity and innovative ideas.
Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said that other directors would be appointed soon, “ones that will bring diversity and represent the strong communities on Twitter. This matters & is a must.”
However, Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co analyst James Cakmak told Reuters: “You need greater turnover than just these two and ideally bring in some media figures… Almost everybody needs to turn over, and these two are just a start.”
The microblogging platform has suffered some poor financial results lately. In February, Twitter reported a quarterly net loss of $90m (£64m) – a month after four top executives left the company.
Twitter stock closed at $16.65 per share on Friday. The company’s November 2013 initial public offering price was $26 and it reached as high as $70 per share in early 2014.
