Facebook Inc. announced Thursday that Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr senior international counsel Robert Kimmitt will assume the vacant position as the company’s lead independent director, a position connecting the company’s founder, CEO and controlling shareholder Mark Zuckerberg with the rest of the board.

Wilmer's Robert Kimmitt Wilmer’s Robert Kimmitt

Kimmitt, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany under President George H. W. Bush and deputy secretary of the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush, currently co-chairs Wilmer ’s crisis management and strategic response group and is based out of the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.