Number Two In Meta, Sheryl Sandberg Says Goodbye To Resigning After 14 Years Of Struggle

Sheryl Sandberg Bersama Mark Zuckerberg (foto : Instagram @sherylsandberg)

JAKARTA - Meta will soon lose its Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg, who has been with the company for 14 years.

Sandberg pursued a career at Facebook before changing its name to Meta in early 2008 as CEO with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

This 52-year-old woman helped turn Facebook into an advertising giant and one of the most powerful companies in the technology industry.

Javier Olivan, currently Meta's Chief Growth Officer, Cross-Meta's VP of Products and Infrastructure, will be the company's next COO.

As COO, Olivan will lead Meta's integrated advertising and products business, in addition to continuing to lead the infrastructure, integrity, analytics, marketing, enterprise development and growth teams.

According to Zuckerberg's statement, Olivan will have a more traditional COO role than Sandberg, which will be focused internally and operationally.

"I think Meta has reached a point where it makes sense for our products and business groups to be more integrated, rather than having all business functions and operations managed separately from our products," Zuckerberg said in a post on his official Facebook page.

Looking back 14 years ago, Zuckerberg acknowledged Sandberg's huge impact on a company where he himself knew almost nothing about how to run a company.

"We've built a great product, the Facebook website but we don't have a profitable business yet and we're struggling to transition from a small start-up to a real organization," Zuckerberg said.

"Sheryl designed our advertising business, hired great people, shaped our management culture and taught me how to run a company."

Sandberg helped the then 23-year-old Zuckerberg navigate the road to an IPO and build the advertising business, which he has led ever since. Prior to that, he spent six years at Google building online sales funnels, for AdWords and AdSense.

At Meta, the ad business in recent years has come under fire on all sides as Apple and regulators cracked down on Facebook's ability to target ads, contributing to a sharp decline in Meta's revenue growth and share price.

Sandberg's departure comes at a pivotal point for Meta, as it transitions from a pool of social networking platforms to a metaverse company.

The social media giant is also under pressure from global leaders to step up its content moderation policies, with companies facing the tough task of curbing harmful content.

Launching CNBC International, Thursday, June 2, Sandberg said the decision to step down to focus more on his philanthropic work. This move is not due to overly high company regulations or the current slowdown in advertising.

Sandberg leveraged her success with Facebook to raise her own profile, especially among women in the workplace.

In 2013, she released the book "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead," focusing on the challenges women face in the workplace and what they can do to advance their careers.