HomeUSAJavier Olivan, Meta's new COO, built his career on global growth

Javier Olivan, Meta’s new COO, built his career on global growth

Mark Zuckerberg, chief govt officer of Fb Inc., proper, pauses whereas talking as Javier Olivan, vice chairman of development and analytics at Fb Inc., seems to be on at Billionaire Carlos Slim’s Telmex Basis annual occasion for scholarship college students in Mexico Metropolis, Mexico, on Friday, Sept. 5, 2014. Zuckerberg stated he is keen to spend no matter it takes to unfold Web entry around the globe.

Susana Gonzalez | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs

Sheryl Sandberg is likely one of the most seen figures in Silicon Valley. Javier “Javi” Olivan, who’s succeeding Sandberg as working chief at Fb proprietor Meta, is a digital unknown off campus.

Sandberg, the writer of the best-selling 2013 guide “Lean In: Girls, Work, and the Will to Lead,” has over 900,000 Instagram followers. Olivan’s Instagram, with 17 followers, is non-public. Till Wednesday, Olivan hadn’t revealed a public publish to his Fb profile since 2018.

“I wish to thank Sheryl for every little thing she’s achieved for Meta and for the billions of individuals around the globe who use our merchandise,” Olivan wrote on Fb after the announcement, coinciding with posts from Sandberg and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

On Wednesday, Sandberg stated she’s ending her 14-year-run on the firm so she will concentrate on philanthropy. Zuckerberg stated that whereas Olivan will assume the COO title, he will not change Sandberg within the organizational construction “since she’s a celebrity who outlined the COO function in her personal distinctive method.”

Olivan’s quiet public persona would not mirror his affect on the firm. He is amongst a handful of executives reporting to Zuckerberg, climbing close to the highest of the latter in his nearly 15-year stint on the social-media firm. He joined the C-suite 5 months in the past, assuming the title of chief development officer, and can also be vice chairman of cross-Meta merchandise and infrastructure.

If Sandberg led the cost in constructing Fb’s promoting enterprise, which nonetheless represents 97% of Meta’s complete income, Olivan deserves credit score for its world enlargement. His first job on the firm, from 2007 to 2011, was head of worldwide development.

Sheryl Sandberg, chief working officer of Fb Inc.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs

Over 91% of month-to-month customers now come from outdoors the U.S. and Canada, in response to Meta’s first quarter results.

Born within the small Spanish municipality of Sabiñánigo in 1977, Olivan labored in Europe and Asia earlier than making his approach to Silicon Valley. After receiving a grasp’s diploma in electrical and industrial engineering from Spain’s College of Navarra, he labored as a analysis and improvement engineer at Siemens in Munich after which at NTT Knowledge in Tokyo. In 2007, he graduated from Stanford College’s enterprise faculty and joined Fb.

When he arrived at Fb in 2007, fewer than 50 million folks have been utilizing the app, with “a really small portion coming from customers outdoors the U.S.” That is in response to the prospectus for Vy World Development, a black-check firm that counts Olivan as a board member.

Along with Vy World, Olivan spent six years on the board of Latin American e-commerce firm MercadoLibre, and he invested in geospatial imaging firm Satellogic forward of the SPAC deal it accomplished in January.

However his profession has been centered at Fb. In 2008, Olivan accompanied Zuckerberg for an look on the College of Navarra. He later labored on Web.org, an effort Fb and different firms launched in 2013 to attach folks to web companies in much less developed nations.

‘Extroverted and social’

By 2015, the Web.org effort had introduced free web companies to over 500 million folks and linked 7 million who weren’t beforehand on-line. In an e-mail interview with Americas Quarterly, Olivan, then vice chairman of development at Fb, stated that whereas the corporate had already change into a fixture throughout Latin America, it nonetheless had ample room to develop within the area.

“Extroverted and social by nature, Latin People have embraced our website to the purpose that in lots of locations, Fb is synonymous with the web,” Olivan wrote.

Spanish was Fb’s first non-English language, and it was the primary challenge Olivan labored on, he stated in an interview earlier this 12 months.

Olivan has continued serving the corporate abroad. As not too long ago as March, he represented Meta on a state go to with Pedro Sánchez, the prime minster of Spain.

Olivan additionally pushed for Fb to purchase cell messaging app WhatsApp. Earlier than the $19 billion acquisition in 2014, Olivan instructed Fb administration that WhatsApp was extra actively used than Fb, noting that “actually everybody” in Spain used it, in response to a 2020 report from Democratic staffers on a U.S. Home subcommittee on antitrust. Zuckerberg stated that he agreed with Olivan’s evaluation that WhatsApp may expose new customers to Fb.

Even with the promotion, Olivan could stay comparatively below the radar. Sandberg, in her function as No. 2, routinely up to date buyers on quarterly earnings calls. A Meta spokesperson declined to touch upon whether or not Olivan would observe swimsuit.

Zuckerberg wrote in his Fb publish that Olivan is taking up built-in adverts and enterprise merchandise whereas persevering with to run infrastructure, integrity, analytics, advertising, company improvement and development.

“With some exceptions, I do not anticipate my function may have the identical public-facing facet, on condition that now we have different leaders at Meta who’re already answerable for that work,” Olivan wrote in his Fb publish.

WATCH: Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg leaving company in the fall

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