SoftBank-Backed Brokerage Compass Adds Independent Director
SoftBank-Backed Compass Is Set to Name First Female Director
(Bloomberg) -- SoftBank-backed real estate brokerage Compass is adding Pamela Thomas-Graham to its board of directors.
Thomas-Graham, 56, is the firm’s first independent director and the first woman to join the board.
“Her deep experience across a variety of industries, both as entrepreneur and executive, paired with her proven track record of governance will provide Compass with a guiding voice as we continue to build the future of real estate,” Compass founder and Executive Chairman Ori Allon said in a statement, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News.
The move comes as SoftBank’s Vision Fund seeks to improve corporate governance at its portfolio companies after WeWork abandoned its IPO. The office-sharing giant was criticized for the absence of a female director when it first filed its paperwork to go public.
Thomas-Graham serves on the board of a handful of other public companies, including Clorox Co. and Peloton Interactive Inc. She was elected to the fitness company’s board some 17 months before its 2019 IPO.
She has held senior roles at companies including Credit Suisse Group AG, Liz Claiborne and McKinsey & Co., according to her LinkedIn profile.
New York-based Compass, one of the largest U.S. real estate brokerages, raised $370 million last July in a transaction that valued it at $6.4 billion. The company said at the time it would use the cash to continue building a software platform to streamline the process of buying and selling homes.
The firm’s other directors are Allon and co-founder Robert Reffkin as well as SoftBank’s Justin Wilson.
To contact the reporter on this story: Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net, Craig Giammona, Christine Maurus
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