49ers hire former Facebook executive new Chief Financial Officer

The 49ers continued adding serious Silicon Valley talent to their front office this week as they have hired Cipora Herman to fill the role of Chief Financial Officer. She takes over the role from Larry MacNeil, who will stay on with the organization as Executive Vice President of Development. Moving forward, MacNeil will focus solely on the stadium project.

Herman previously served as VP of Finance for Facebook, and before that she was treasurer of Yahoo! According to an internal 49ers memo, mentioned in the Fortune article, she also worked for Hewlett-Packard and Seibel Systems. She has a strong 49ers connection in that team president Gideon Yu apparently hired her at both Yahoo! and Facebook. Herman is the third hire from Silicon Valley, and Facebook in particularly, joining Yu and new chief technology officer Kunal Malik.

I think Tre might have had the best tweet about the hiring:

The San Franfacebook 49ers

— Tre Faaborg (@Tre9er) October 23, 2012

I have to think somebody can come up with a sign for the next 49ers home game. Can anybody photoshop a logo featuring both the Facebook and 49ers logos? It seems like the next obvious step!

But seriously, the 49ers have done a great job on and off the field in putting together the team that makes this franchise go. Jim Harbaugh and his staff were the high profile hires, but these moves into Silicon Valley could prove to be strokes of genius in turning the 49ers into the premier sports organization in all of sports. Championships are obviously first and foremost in everybody's minds, but this kind of front office maneuvering is what can set the 49ers up to become a model franchise. The team has come a long way from stumbling through much of the mid '00s. It's quite refreshing.