Meta’s Sheryl Sandberg Is No Longer Its COO, Social Network Confirms
Image by Drew Altizer/Financial Times on Flickr, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
A key figure of Facebook, and now Meta, has stepped down from her role. Sheryl Sandberg, who served as the company’s chief operating officer (COO) and ran the business side of things for 14 years, previously announced her departure back in June. However, a United States Securities and Exchange Commission filing published on August 1 sets this in stone.
Meta’s document, first spotted by TechCrunch, names chief growth officer Javier Olivan as the new COO. As for Sandberg, she’ll stay on as a Meta employee only until September 30, then helm the role of a board member and be compensated as a non-employee director.
Meta today, as the new name implies, is not the Facebook it was a decade ago. It’s undergone a rebrand to lead the general public into the unfamiliar metaverse, and it’s teeming with baggage linked to user data and security. The company is also struggling to reach out to younger users, having recently withdrawn a test for interface designs that acted uncannily like TikTok after inciting outrage. Amid never-before-seen losses, the company has been fervently restructuring behind the scenes.
When acknowledging Sandberg’s exit in June, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said there was no way anyone could fill in her shoes down to the exact size. “I’m not sure that would be possible since she’s a superstar who defined the COO role in her own unique way,” Zuckerberg shared. As a result, Olivan will have a different job scope—one that’s simultaneously adapted to Meta’s new goals.
As the new COO, Olivan will be in charge of the company’s advertising and business products, while overseeing “infrastructure, integrity, analytics, marketing, corporate development, and growth,” shared Zuckerberg.
“I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products,” Zuckerberg noted then.
[via TechCrunch and Engadget, cover image by Drew Altizer/Financial Times on Flickr, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)]
