Javier Olivan will replace Mark Zuckerberg as Mark Zuckerberg’s second chief operating officer. After 15 years of driving social media’s rapid growth, the Meta Platforms (Facebook parent), veteran will be the company’s chief operational officer. . Sheryl Sandberg announced her resignation Wednesday.
Olivan, Huesca (Sabinanigo 1977), holds a degree from the University of Navarra in electrical and industrial engineering and a master’s in business administration from Stanford University.
Olivan, 44 years old, was previously employed at NTT and Siemens in Japan before joining Facebook as the head of international growth at the end 2007. He joined Facebook in 2007, when it was a young company that had 40 million users. Now, there are nearly 3.6 billion people on Facebook and other apps such as Instagram.
According to VentureBeat’s 2010 interview, Olivan was responsible for Facebook’s international expansion. Critics claim that the company did not have sufficient safeguards to stop the spread of hate speech, disinformation and harmful content in emerging markets.
Frances Haugen, former Facebook product manager, leaked internal documents last spring. She claimed that Facebook placed profits above user safety and did not have adequate controls to remove harmful material in languages other than English.
Olivan is a paraglider and surfer and was Vice President and Director for Product and Growth at Meta. He was responsible for managing features and functions across Facebook, Instagram, and the messaging apps WhatsApp, Messenger, and other platforms. He will continue to be responsible for infrastructure and corporate development in his new role. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, said Wednesday that his portfolio would include advertising and business products.
One thing is certain. While Olivan serves as director, operations, Olivan will not be in the limelight. This is in contrast to Sandberg who was a frequent representative of Facebook at events and appeared before Congress. This role will be different than what Sheryl has done. Javi will take on the traditional role of COO, which Javi will concentrate on both internally and operationally. This will build on her solid track record of making our execution more efficient.
Brian Wieser (global president of business intelligence, ad agency GroupM) said that Meta has grown to be a mature company with $118 billion in revenues, and Olivan may now have less autonomy than Sandberg. Wieser stated that Olivan will need to be more attentive to brand protection and data privacy issues so that their ads don’t appear alongside inappropriate content.
