Alongside company founder Mark Zuckerberg, the manager is the most important manager at the Facebook group Meta.
(Photo: AP)
san francisco Sheryl Sandberg is retiring from the management of the Facebook group Meta. She announced this on Wednesday. Sandberg had led the company as chief operating officer (COO) alongside company founder Mark Zuckerberg. She is considered one of the most influential women in global business.
According to her announcement, the 52-year-old wants to remain on the company’s board of directors. Longtime meta manager Javier Olivan is set to take over the COO post from Sandberg. The post is to be formally handed over in the autumn. Sandberg did not share an exact date.
After the announcement, the Meta share price initially fell by almost four percent, but then recovered somewhat.
The manager joined Mark Zuckerberg’s company in 2008. Under her leadership, the former start-up has grown to become the most powerful social network in the world with around three billion monthly active users in the world. Around 80 percent of global internet users outside of China use at least one of the company’s products – such as Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram. Facebook applications are blocked in the People’s Republic of China.
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When she took the job at Facebook, she assumed she would stay with the company for maybe five years. “Today – 14 years later – it is time for me to start a new chapter in my life,” wrote Sandberg. She will organize her handover with Zuckerberg over the next few months and leave the company in the fall. “I am honored to remain a member of Meta’s board of directors,” Sandberg wrote.
Mark Zuckerberg shared, “Looking forward, I have no plans to replace Sheryl’s role in our existing structure. I’m not sure that would be possible because she is a superstar who has defined the role of COO in her own unique way.”
The economist Sandberg, who was trained at the elite Harvard University, initially worked for the management consultancy McKinsey. She then moved to the Treasury Department during the Clinton presidency and finally to search engine operator Google in 2001. At Google, she led the highly profitable advertising business before finally moving to Facebook.
During her time at Facebook, Sandberg made the advancement of women a focus of her work. At the same time, she had let the public participate widely in her private life.
This also includes that in 2015 she reported extensively on the death of her husband Dave Goldberg, who suffered from cardiac arrhythmia and collapsed on a treadmill. Sandberg spoke at length about how she dealt with the grief over Goldberg’s death. In 2017, she published a book entitled “Option B” that addresses this topic.
More: Inside Meta: The Deep Fall of the Facebook Group.