David Ebersman is to to take on the chief financial officer role for global online social networking website Facebook, following the company’s announcement in March that its current CFO was stepping down.

Ebersman was previously CFO for drugs developer Genetech until earlier this year when it was acquired by Roche Holdings, Reuters reported.

Facebook announced earlier this year that Gideon Yu, who has previously worked in senior finance roles for Google, Yahoo, and YouTube, was stepping down and that the company was searching for a replacement with public company experience.

Ebersman will take up his new role in September this year.

Facebook, although privately held was estimated to have a market value of over $15bn following investment by Microsoft in 2007.