WASHINGTON: META’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has finally stepped down after spending 14 years as the social network’s second most important executive. META has appointed Chief Development Officer Javier Olivan as the new COO, taking over from August 1.
In 2008, Facebook was introduced in the English language only and efforts were on to expand it internationally. When Javier Olivan got the job, he made a significant contribution to this effort. He suggested that instead of paying translators, Facebook asks its users to do the work for free. German volunteers translated the site in just two weeks, shortly after Facebook’s Spanish users did the same. It took just 24 hours to translate Facebook into French. The site was working in 18 different languages within six months. One of his suggestions led to the expansion of Facebook internationally.
Who is Javier Olivan?
In a career spanning 15 years at Meta, Olivan, 45, has become the company’s most effective problem solver, and one of Zuckerberg’s most trusted confidants. He now replaces META’s second-in-command, Sheryl Sandberg, as chief operating officer.
Olivan helped expand the service
When Zuckerberg invented Facebook, it was Olivan who helped expand the service. He’s become the company’s unofficial fixer when Zuckerberg really wants to do something. He ditched Facebook’s Messenger app, which now has over 1 billion users. He was also a prominent advocate for several Facebook deals, such as the $22 billion acquisition of WhatsApp. After exposing Facebook’s many flaws around election ads and misinformation after the 2016 election on his phone, Zuckerberg put teams working on those problems, including Meta, under Olivan.
Olivan’s role in advancing Facebook Lite
Olivan was instrumental in pushing Facebook Lite, a version of the social network released in 2015. Facebook Lite, which uses less wireless data, is why people in emerging markets started having the application on their phones, and Lite now has over 200 million users.
Zuckerberg’s choice to have Oliven as COO suggests a few even bigger needs to be addressed. For perhaps the first time in a decade, the company is feeling insecure. Facebook’s growth has begun to stall, and Zuckerberg also made several changes to the platform to compete with Tiktok. After falling revenue in its first quarter in July, the company cut expenses. Meta is also grappling with privacy changes on iPhones that make it harder for the company to collect accurate targeting data that has plagued its advertising business for years. was operating. At the start of the year, Meta said the changes could see a $10 billion reduction in profit.
