His appointment to the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management was announced this week as Facebook tries to expand its reach to the Chinese market.
The high-profile appointment is likely to develop closer ties between the social media giant and Tsinghua, opening up employment opportunity for graduates in one of the world’s most sought-after technology companies.
The Facebook supremo is an impressive name to add to a list of corporate superpowers. The business school also jointly appointed Carlos Brito, CEO of brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, and Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, the technology group.
Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009, although users can access it through proxy services that sidestep government censors. Most other social networking services are blocked in China, including YouTube and Twitter.
Mark will spend several days in Beijing this week to meet with advertising partners to learn about the Chinese market, Facebook told Reuters.
Analysts believe that the company is trying to tap into the Chinese market by hiring local graduates to work in the US. Job postings that appeared earlier in the year seeking language specialists fluent in simplified Chinese have fuelled speculation.
In July Bloomberg reported that Facebook leased space in Beijing in preparation to open a China office, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company has already built up a business in the country from a Hong Kong base which sells adverts to businesses that want to reach international users.
Facebook has grown its Asian business operations. The company made $354 million in Asia in the first quarter of 2014, or 14% of overall revenue, up from $118 million, 11% of total revenue, at the time of its May 2012 stock market listing.
China has great potential for further growth. In April the country had about 618 million Internet users – double the entire US population – according to data from Topeka Capital Markets.
The advisory board of Tsinghua has a host of other corporate big hitters on its roster. These include figures from energy majors Royal Dutch Shell and BP, and General Motors and Ford Motors, the automotive giants.
Founded in 1984 by Zhu Rongji who went on to serve as premier of China, Tsinghua’s business school also has board members including Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and Tim Cook, CEO of Apple.
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