Seeking Experience With A Crash-And-Burn Share Price, Facebook Hires Zynga CFO David Wehner As Finance VP

Zynga just reshuffled its management team, and one interesting departure is former CFO David Wehner who has left to become Facebook’s VP of Corporate Finance & Business Planning. He’ll bring along what he’s learned from Zynga’s cratered share price. He’ll report to Facebook CFO David Ebersman who was previously at Genentech whose stock sailed much smoother seas before it was acquired.

Wehner will be replaced by Mark Vranesh who’s been promoted from his role at Zynga as chief accounting officer. The press release makes Wehner’s departure sound pretty amicable so he might have left on his own accord. But you know, sometimes people get fired.

Wehner wrote, “I have greatly enjoyed working closely with Mark Pincus and the rest of the team. The time I spent at Zynga has been an exciting chapter in my career as we led the rapid development of social gaming. Mark Vranesh and I have been close partners during my tenure at Zynga and I wish my colleagues well as the company continues to deliver on its vision.”

Zynga IPO’d at $10 a year ago, and after a brief climb has gotten clobbered, now down to $2.11. Facebook wants to avoid a similar fate. It IPO’d at $38 in May and has sunk to half that, now sitting at $19.86. Wehner’s knowledge could make sure Facebook implements emergency plans to stem losses if the share price starts to tank and prevent it from bottoming out.

Facebook will deal with one of its biggest challenges yet when its biggest stock lockup expires tomorrow, which could flood the market with shares. Wehner’s seen this all before, and could keep $FB afloat.

And depending on how Facebook feels about Ebersman, Wehner might even be getting an on-site education before being promoted to CFO to replace the old Genentech exec.