Robin L. Washington

Corporate executive Robin L. Washington was born on September 22, 1962 in Lincoln Park, Michigan to Mary Mays Moyer and Alex Moyer, Jr. She received her B.B.A. degree in accounting and finance in 1984 from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan and her M.B.A. degree in strategy and finance in 1995 from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

After working as an accounting analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and as a senior auditor for Deloitte & Touche, Washington was hired by the field operations department of Tandem Computers, a computer systems manufacturing company, in Cupertino, California in 1987. There, she served as manager of global revenue recognition, international accounting manager, manager of business practices, and director of finance for the western region sales organization. In 1996, Washington was hired as senior vice president and corporate controller for PeopleSoft, a management software company, in Pleasanton, California. In 2006, she was named CFO of Hyperion Solutions, a business intelligence and performance management tools company in Santa Clara, California. Then, in 2008, Washington was hired by Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company in Foster City, California, where she oversaw the global finance, facilities, and operations, investor relations, and information technology groups for eleven years until her retirement in 2019.

Washington has served on numerous corporate boards including those of Tektronix; MIPS Technologies; Honeywell International; Salesforce, where she chaired the audit committee; Alphabet Inc., where she chaired the leadership development and compensation committee; and StockX, where she chaired the audit committee. Washington’s non-profit service includes serving on the boards of the Financial Accounting Foundation, the University of California at San Francisco’s Benioff Children’s Hospital, and the Mastercard Foundation.

Washington was ranked sixth on the Wall Street Journal’s list of top ten performing CFOs in the S&P 500 in 2014. She was also named the number one CFO in biotechnology by Institutional Investor magazine in 2016. In 2011, Washington received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School.

Washington and her husband, Carl Washington, live in San Francisco, California. They have two children, Ennis Washington and Kendyl Washington.

Robin L. Washington was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 27, 2022.