Martha Lane Fox to join Twitter board

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Martha Lane FoxImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Martha Lane Fox is a former UK digital champion

Digital pioneer Martha Lane Fox has tweeted that she will be joining the board of US-based social network Twitter.

Baroness Lane-Fox tweeted that it would be the "best job ever".

Twitter has suffered some poor financial results lately, with a quarterly net loss of $90m (£64m) reported in February.

Pepsi chief financial officer Hugh Johnston will also join the social network's board.

Baroness Lane-Fox is widely regarded as one of Britain's most successful web pioneers.

She was the UK's Digital Champion until 2013, the same year she joined the House of Lords

She began her digital career with the launch of lastminute.com along with co-founder Brent Hoberman in 1998.

By the time they sold it in 2005, the deal valued the company at £577m.

Recently, she founded Dot Everyone, a body that champions digital innovation.

'The Brits are coming'

"I'm absolutely over the moon to be part of the journey of an iconic company that I love using," Baroness Lane-Fox told the BBC.

"Watch out Silicon Valley - the Brits are coming," she added.

Image caption,
The news was - appropriately - announced via a tweet

It was also announced that Pepsi vice chairman and chief financial officer Hugh Johnston would join Twitter's board.

Twitter executive chairman Omid Kordestani tweeted that he was "thrilled" by the news.

"It's a really interesting appointment," Richard Holway, chairman of the TechMarketView consultancy, told the BBC.

But he added that in his opinion Twitter faced an uphill struggle when it came to turning the company's fortunes around.

"I think Twitter has huge problems and it will need some pretty major changes in order to make it relevant and, in particular, profitable."