On June 1, Sheryl Sandberg’s journey with Facebook (now Meta) came to an end. The longtime second-in-command at Meta stepped down as the chief operating officer. She leaves behind a complicated legacy. Javier Olivan, Meta’s chief growth officer, will now fill in her big shoes.
Sandberg made a post on Facebook to make her resignation official.
“When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years,” Sandberg wrote. “Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life. I am not entirely sure what the future will bring—I have learned no one ever is.”
“When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years,” Sandberg wrote. “Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life. I am not entirely sure what the future will bring—I have learned no one ever is.”
Since Sandberg joined Meta, it transformed from an almost no ad revenue platform to an advertising giant. In 2021, Meta brought in a whopping $115 billion in revenue through advertising. In addition, it has a portfolio of apps that reach 3.6 billion people in a month.
Sandberg joined when the company was still just Facebook but brought in Instagram in 2012 and went public. It now owns Messenger and WhatsApp.
Sandberg will remain on the Board of Directors, Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. "You've architected our ads business, hired great people, forged our management culture, and taught me how to run a company," he added.
Talking about Javier Olivan, Zuckerberg said, “Javi will become our next Chief Operating Officer since he will now lead our integrated ads and business products in addition to continuing to lead our infrastructure, integrity, analytics, marketing, corporate development and growth teams. But this role will be different from what Sheryl has done. It will be a more traditional COO role where Javi will be focused internally and operationally, building on his strong track record of making our execution more efficient and rigorous.”