Microsoft Adds African-American Member to its Board of Directors, Former Symantec CEO And IBM Exec John Thompson
Microsoft has a new addition to the team. CEO of Virtual Instruments and former chairman and CEO of Symantec, John W. Thompson was recently announced as the new board member for the tech giant making him the only African-American on the board of directors.
Thompson currently serves as CEO of Virtual Instruments and previously served as chairman and CEO of Symantec from 1999 to 2009. He stepped down as CEO of Symantec in 2009 and from Symantec’s board of directors in 2011. In addition, Thompson has held numerous executive positions at IBM.
According to Tech Crunch, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stated “John has extraordinary technology and business expertise, and we are delighted that he is joining Microsoft’s board of directors.”
Thompson joins Microsoft’s other board of directors:
- Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft
- Steve Ballmer, CEO
- Dina Dublon, Former CFO of JPMorgan Chase
- Raymond Gilmartin, Former chairman, president and CEO of Merck & Co. Inc.
- Reed Hastings, Netflix founder and CEO
- Dr. Maria M. Klawe, President of Harvey Mudd College
- David F. Marquardt, General partner at August Capital
- Charles H. Noski, Vice chairman of Bank of America Corp.
- Dr. Helmut G. W. Panke, Former chairman of the board of management at BMW AG
Category: Featured, News | Tags: african-american, Bill Gates, board of directors, John W. Thompson, Microsoft
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