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Facebook has announced it has named David Ebersman, as its new chief financial officer.

Ebersman is the former executive vice president and chief financial officer of biotechnology firm Genentech. He replaces Facebook's former financial chief, Gideon Yu, who left the company in March.

Ebersman will report to Chief Executive and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. He will be in charge of Facebook's finance, accounting, investor relations, and real estate functions. He also becomes a part of the company's executive management team, which runs all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Ebersman will officially start in September.

David Ebersman

"We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Mark Zuckerberg.

"We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech's CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook."

In March after the departure of Yu, Facebook said it was working towards its "next stage of growth," which led many to speculate about a possible IPO.

Facebook also said it was "looking for someone with public company experience," which it gets with Ebersman. He worked at Genentech for nearly 15 years and was the firm's executive vice president and CFO from 2006 through April 2009, when the Roche Group purchased the company.