In this article, 23andMe announced the appointment of three new independent directors to its board on Tuesday, following the sudden resignation of all seven previous directors a month earlier. The new board members are Andre Fernandez, former CFO of WeWork; Jim Frankola, former CFO of Cloudera; and Mark Jensen, a tech advisor and former managing partner at Deloitte. The only other board member is 23andMe’s co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki.
Fernandez, Frankola, and Jensen will join the board’s audit committee and compensation committee. Jensen will serve as the lead independent director and chair of the compensation committee, while Fernandez will chair the audit committee. Wojcicki expressed her excitement about working with the new directors.
The previous independent directors of 23andMe resigned in September, citing disagreements with Wojcicki over the company’s strategic direction. The company, once valued at $6 billion, has faced challenges since going public in 2021 through a SPAC. Following a reverse stock split earlier this month, the company’s stock was trading around $5 on Tuesday.
In an effort to explore potential paths forward, the former independent directors formed a special committee in late March. Wojcicki proposed taking the company private in July, but the proposal was rejected by the special committee due to lack of committed financing and failure to offer a premium to the closing price at the time.
Despite being given the opportunity to submit a revised proposal, Wojcicki did not provide one, leading to the resignation of the directors in September. Wojcicki has reiterated her commitment to taking the company private in the weeks following the departure of the board members.
