June 1 (Reuters) – Chief Operating Officer of Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O) Cheryl Sandberg, whose close partnership with CEO Mark Zuckerberg spurred the growth of the world’s largest social network, is leaving the company after 14 years, she said. post on Facebook on Wednesday.
The announcement initially cut shares of the social media company by 4%, but the shares were almost unchanged in after-hours trading.
“When I took up this job in 2008, I hoped to be in that role for five years. “Fourteen years later, it’s time to write the next chapter of my life,” she wrote.
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Growth CEO Javier Olivan will take over as chief operating officer, Zuckerberg said in a separate Facebook post, although he added that he did not plan to replace Sandberg’s role directly in the company’s existing structure.
“I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, instead of all business and operational functions being organized separately from our products,” he said.
Olivan has been with Meta for more than 14 years and has led teams working with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Leaving Sandberg marks the end of an era for Meta that shifts the focus to hardware products and the “metaverse” after years of scandals over privacy abuses and conspiracy theories on its platforms, as well as slowing user growth on its flagship application. Facebook.
The second head of founder Zuckerberg, who was 23 when he hired her, Sandberg is one of the company’s most prominent executives and a leading architect of the often-criticized advertising-based business model.
Bringing managerial experience and knowledge to the nascent digital advertising industry, she transformed Facebook from a vibrant startup to a revenue giant, while positioning itself as the face of feminism in corporate America.
At the time, Facebook was making $ 272 million in revenue for a net loss of $ 56 million, according to regulatory documents. By 2011, a year before the company’s initial public offering, its revenue had reached $ 3.7 billion, with a profit of $ 1 billion.
Meta ended 2021 with revenue of $ 118 billion and revenue of $ 39.4 billion.
Sandberg said in his post that he would continue to serve on Meta’s board after leaving the company in the fall.
When asked about her next steps, she told Reuters she was focusing on philanthropy at a “critical time for women”.
Cheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and current chair of the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum (GIFCT), gave a press conference on the sidelines of the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit at UN Headquarters in New York. New York, USA, September 23, 2019. REUTERS / Yana Paskova / Dossiers
“We have hired so many great leaders. I feel really good about it. The next leadership team is on track to take the company forward, ”she said, referring by name to Chief Business Officer Marne Levine and Global Affairs President Nick Clegg.
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Sandberg is a staunch supporter of Facebook during its many controversies, consistently claiming that executives are learning from their mistakes and refining the company’s tools for better policing against harmful content.
Last year, she told Reuters that she and Zuckerberg had a responsibility to repair systems that had broken down, while dismissing reports that she was losing power in the company.
“People love titles for corporate drama, and I think it’s fair to say that they especially like titles for the removal of women,” she said in a January 2021 interview.
Sandberg’s mandate covers both Facebook’s initial agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission in 2011 for privacy breaches and a subsequent $ 5 billion agreement for breaches of the earlier deal.
She and Zuckerberg were among those whom then-Commissioner Rohit Chopra said needed to face more investigations into their role in the company’s behavior.
Under her leadership, the company was shocked by the revelations in 2018 that the British consulting company Cambridge Analytica had illegally acquired data on millions of its users in the United States in order to target election advertising.
That same year, UN human rights investigators said Facebook’s use had played a key role in spreading hate speech that fueled violence against the Rohingya community in Myanmar.
She drew further criticism when she told Reuters earlier last year that she believed the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol were largely organized on other platforms, although researchers have identified similar activities on Facebook.
Informant Francis Haugen accused the social media giant late last year of repeatedly prioritizing profits over limiting hate speech and misinformation, and said her lawyers had filed at least eight complaints with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. .
Prior to joining Facebook, Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google and chief of staff of the United States Treasury Department under former President Bill Clinton.
A graduate of Harvard University, Sandberg is the author of several books, including the 2013 feminist manifesto.
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Report by Katie Paul in Palo Alto; additional reports by Gina Chon and Diane Bartz in Washington, Sheila Dang from Dallas and Akash Shriram in Bengaluru; Edited by Arun Coyur, Alistair Bell and Bernard Orr
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