Jive's Board of Directors Get Some New Blood From Facebook, Google & McAfee #gartner360

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Mar 30, 2011

Jive Software (news, site) announced some new blood to their board of directors today. These are four men who know more than just a little bit about things like data integration, scalability and social business.

New Additions to the Board

CMSWire had a chat with Jive Software's CFO, Bryan LeBlanc about the new recruits and he was nothing short of happy with the final group chosen to help Jive take its social business software to new levels of innovation and scalability.

The new members of the BOD includes:

Chuck Robel: The former chairman of the board for McAfee prior to the Intel acquisition, Robel is currently Lead Independent Director for Informatica Corporation.
David DeWalt: The president of McAfee, DeWalt has some very nice government contacts, and has a list of current leadership positions in companies such as EMC, Oracle and Quest. DeWalt is also Chairman of the Board of Directors at Polycom. (Side note: the wrestling is interesting too).
Jonathan Heiliger: As Vice President of Technical Operations at Facebook, Heiliger has a direct line to Mark Zuckerberg. He oversees global infrastructure and internal technology systems for Facebook, but his experience goes back further than that. LeBlanc said he is a great technical advisor for the social space.
Sundar Pichai: Pichai is the VP of Product Management at Google and is behind innovations such as the Google Toolbar, Chrome and Chrome OS.

These four men join existing board members Bill Lanfri, Private Investor; Bill Lynch, Jive Co-Founder; Jim Goetz, General Partner at Sequoia Capital; Ted Schlein, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins; and Tony Zingale, Jive CEO.

How Important is the Board?

BODs are used in different ways from different companies. We wanted to know exactly how this board works with Jive. LeBlanc said that Tony Zingale understands the importance of both a strategic and tactical board of directors. Jive looks to the board for feedback and guidance on product management, engineering and sales, among other things.

Picking board members is a time consuming effort, LeBlanc said you want to ensure you bring the right individuals to the table. Individual with backgrounds in the areas you want to develop, individuals who understand social and understand Jive. With a board like this, there should be a lot of good advice to get.