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After 14 years, Sheryl Sandberg is stepping down from her role as Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Meta, formerly known as Facebook.
Sandberg will leave “in the fall” while remaining on Meta’s board, with Javier Olivan, the company’s chief growth officer, taking over as COO.
Sandberg, a Harvard graduate, joined Facebook in 2008. She served in the Treasury Department of the Clinton administration and then as Google’s vice-president of global online sales and operations.
Sandberg has the credit for leading the company’s monetisation, which went public in 2012 and made $117 billion in sales in 2021 when she joined Zuckerberg’s staff of 20-somethings at the time.
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Sandberg used her Facebook success to raise her profile, particularly among women in the workplace.
In 2013, she published “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” which focused on the issues women face in the workplace and what they can do to enhance their careers.
Her husband, Dave Goldberg, died unexpectedly in 2015 after suffering cardiac arrhythmia and collapsing on the treadmill. Sandberg has spoken extensively on coping with the sadness of Goldberg’s death, and she published a book titled “Option B” in 2017 that focused on the subject.
Sandberg said in a Facebook post, “Over the next few months, Mark and I will transition my direct reports.”
‘End of an era’
Calling the move the ‘end of an era’ in his Facebook post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Sandberg had been crucial to his company’s success.
He said, “Sheryl architected our ads business, hired great people, forged our management culture, and taught me how to run a company.”
Zuckerberg added that Meta is also planning an internal reorganization to go along with the change.
He said, “Looking forward, I don’t plan to replace Sheryl’s role in our existing structure. I’m not sure that would be possible since she’s a superstar who defined the COO role in her own unique way.”
“But even if it were possible, 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,” he added.
To focus on philanthropy works
Meanwhile, amidst her noticeable minimal participation in the launch of the metaverse, Sandberg disposed of any claims saying that the move was due to the company’s regulatory burden or current advertising slowdown.
Sandberg said she had intended to stay with the company for about five years rather than the 14 she has. She added that stepping down will allow her to devote more time to her charity efforts.
In recent years, Meta has been under fire for its vast reach, failure to restrict the spread of disinformation and dangerous material, and acquisitions of then competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp.
Zuckerberg and other executives have also been obliged to appear in front of Congress several times, though Sandberg has mainly avoided the spotlight.
After a whistleblower filed a complaint about the company’s attempts to combat hate on its platform, the Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust action against it. It could face attention from other agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
