Susan Rice, an alum of the Obama administration, will exit the Netflix board of directors to take a top policy position in president-elect Joe Biden’s White House.
On Thursday, Biden announced the appointment of Rice as director of his Domestic Policy Council, which will give her broad influence over the incoming administration’s approach to immigration, health care and racial inequality.
Netflix named Rice to its board in March 2018, when she became the company’s fourth female board member. She has been a distinguished visiting research fellow at American University’s School of International Service, as well as a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
“We are grateful to Susan Rice for her many contributions on our board and congratulate her on her return to public service,” Reed Hastings, Netflix co-CEO and chairman, said in a statement provided to Variety.
Under Netflix’s bylaws, certain investors (or groups of investors) are eligible to nominate new members of the board and have them included in its annual meeting proxy materials under a provision adopted last year. Previously, all directors were nominated by the existing board. (Netflix hasn’t added a director to its board since Rice’s appointment.)
Besides having Rice serve on its board, Netflix has other ties to the Obamas — most explicitly, through its overall deal inked in 2018 with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions to produce series and movies for the streamer.
The other Netflix directors are: Reed Hastings; Anne Sweeney, former president of Disney-ABC Television Group; Richard Barton, executive chairman of Zillow Group and founder of Expedia; A. George (Skip) Battle, former executive chairman of Ask Jeeves and executive at Andersen Consulting; Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer; Timothy Haley, managing director at Redpoint Ventures; Jay Hoag, general partner at Technology Crossover Ventures; Leslie Kilgore, former Netflix chief marketing officer; Ann Mather, ex-CFO of Pixar and Village Roadshow Pictures, former Disney exec; and Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer, Microsoft.
Rice served as a key adviser to President Obama during his two terms in office. From 2013-17, she headed the National Security Council staff, providing daily national security briefing to President Obama. Before that, she was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. from 2009-13 and served as a member of Obama’s cabinet. Rice has been a target for conservative critics who have criticized her over her comments about the September 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Previously, during President Bill Clinton’s second term, Rice was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and was a member of the National Security Council staff. She was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution from 2002-08.
Rice began her career as a management consultant with McKinsey and Co. She has served on several boards, including those for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Bureau of National Affairs, National Democratic Institute, and the US Fund for UNICEF. The Washington, D.C., native is married to former ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron, and the couple have two children.