23andMe appoints three new board members after abrupt resignations

ATHERTON, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 15: Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ. Magazine Style & Tech Dinner on March 15, 2023 in Atherton, California. (Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for WSJ.)

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23andMe appointed three new independent directors to its board, the company announced Tuesday, one month after all seven of its previous directors abrubtly resigned.

The new board members are Andre Fernandez, the former CFO of WeWork; Jim Frankola, the former CFO of the enterprise cloud company Cloudera; and Mark Jensen, a tech adviser and former managing partner at Deloitte, according to a release. The only other board member is 23andMe’s co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki. 

Fernandez, Frankola and Jensen will all serve on the board’s audit committee and compensation committee, the company said. Jensen will act as the lead independent director and chair of the compensation committe, while Fernandez will chair the audit committee.

“I am excited to welcome these three experienced directors to the 23andMe Board, and looking forward to working with them,” Wojcicki said in the release.

23andMe’s previous independent directors announced their resignation in a letter to Wojcicki in September, writing that they disagreed with her about the “strategic direction for the company.”

The genetic-testing company, once valued at $6 billion, has struggled since it went public in 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Shares were hovering below $1 until 23andMe announced a 1-for-20 reverse stock split of the Company’s Class A and Class B common stock earlier this month.

The company’s stock was trading around $5 on Tuesday morning.

To help 23andMe explore potential paths forward, the previous independent directors on the company’s board formed a special committee in late March. Wojcicki submitted a proposal to take the company private in July, but it was rejected by the special committee, in part because it lacked committed financing and didn’t provide a premium to the closing price of 40 cents per share at the time.

The directors gave Wojcicki the opportunity to submit a more suitable revised proposal, but they did not receive one, according to the September letter.

“We believe that it is in the best interests of the Company’s shareholders that we resign from the Board rather than have a protracted and distracting difference of view with you as to the direction of the Company,” they wrote.

In the weeks following the board members’ departures, Wojcicki has repeatedly said she remains committed to taking the company private.