NEW YORK — David Ebersman, a former executive at biotech firm Genentech, was named Monday as Facebook's chief financial officer.

Ebersman, 39, will formally start at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based online hangout in September.

He replaces Gideon Yu, who left abruptly in March. Facebook said at the time it was looking for someone with "public company experience," even though Yu had previously worked at Yahoo Inc. — which is public.

Ebersman hails from Genentech, which has been sold to pharmaceutical company Roche Holding AG.

"He was Genentech's CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast-growing company will be important to Facebook," founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.