Former Clinton chief of staff joins Facebook board

Bowles, 66, was named by Clinton in 1993 to head the Small Business Administration and served as White House chief of staff from 1996 to 1998.

A former president of the University of North Carolina, Bowles recently served as the co-chair of President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

"Erskine has held important roles in government, academia and business which have given him insight into how to build organizations and navigate complex issues," Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said.

"Along with his experience founding companies, this will be very valuable as we continue building new things to help make the world more open and connected," Zuckerberg said in a statement.

Bowles described the Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, which has more than 750 million members, as a "transformative force in the world."

"I'm really looking forward to getting to work and helping Facebook however I can," he said.

The other members of Facebook's board are Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, venture capitalist Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, Donald Graham, the chairman and chief executive of The Washington Post Co., Reed Hastings, the chairman and chief executive of Netflix, and Peter Thiel of Clarium Capital and the Founders Fund.

Thiel was an early investor in Facebook.

(c) 2011 AFP