Facebook adds Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to board of directors

San Francisco, Feb 4 (IANS) Mark Zuckerberg has made his long-time friend Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of file hosting service Dropbox, one of the members of Facebook board of directors.

Zuckerberg and Houston have been friends for several years, appearing in photos together at birthday parties and other events.

“Houston brings valuable perspective to our board as a leader of a technology company with services used by millions of people and businesses,” Zuckerberg said in a statement late Monday.

“It’s been inspiring to watch Facebook grow into a platform that reaches billions of people around the world. I’m looking forward to working with Mark and the rest of the Board on the many opportunities and challenges ahead,” added Houston.

Houston co-founded Dropbox in 2007 with Arash Ferdowsi.

He has led the company’s growth from a simple idea to a service used by over 600 million people around the world.

Today, the company is one of the world’s leading business collaboration platforms with 14 million paying subscribers and 2,300 employees across 12 global offices.

Facebook has undergone various board changes in the recent past.

In April last year, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings left Facebook’s board after serving on it for eight years.

The social networking giant then added Paypal’s senior vice president of core markets Peggy Alford, who became the first African-American woman to serve on its board.

Facebook’s current board members are: Mark Zuckerberg; Peggy Alford, Senior Vice President, Core Markets of PayPal Holdings, Inc; Marc L. Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz; Kenneth I. Chenault, Chairman and Managing Director, General Catalyst; Drew Houston, Co-Founder and CEO, Dropbox; Sheryl K. Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook; Peter A. Thiel, Founders Fund; and Jeffrey D. Zients, CEO, the Cranemere Group.