Sheryl Sandberg joins board of late husband's firm

SAN FRANCISCO — In a touching tribute to her late husband and his legacy in Silicon Valley, Sheryl Sandberg has joined the board of SurveyMonkey, the online survey company Dave Goldberg ran for six years until his sudden death.

"I watched him and his team execute on their mission to help people make better decisions," Sandberg said in a statement issued by SurveyMonkey. "I'm looking forward to working with the board and this amazing team and help to realize Dave's vision of building a lasting company that will impact the way we all do business for years to come."

Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and one of Silicon Valley's most powerful and prominent women executives.

Also joining the SurveyMonkey board is David Ebersman, Facebook's former chief financial officer who now heads health-care startup Lyra Health.

The startup rocked by the death of its popular CEO will be able to count on the guidance of another Silicon Valley executive. SurveyMonkey announced that Zander Lurie, the GoPro executive who has served as SurveyMonkey's temporary executive chairman since shortly after Goldberg's death, would become its permanent board chairman.

Goldberg died suddenly in May at age 47 in an accident while on vacation in Mexico.

"We are thrilled to have Sheryl and David join our board. They are talented business leaders with deep operational and financial expertise who will provide valuable perspective to our management team," Lurie said in the statement. "With their strategic input, SurveyMonkey will be even better positioned to scale our profitable business."