Former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg to leave company board in May

02/29/2024 / By Ava Grace

Sheryl Sandberg, senior executive at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms, is set to leave the company’s board of directors following her 2022 departure as chief operating officer (COO).

“With a heart filled with gratitude and a mind filled with memories, I let the Meta board know that I will not stand for reelection this May,” she wrote in a Facebook post. Sandberg left Google to join Meta (then called Facebook) in 2008, four years before Zuckerberg’s company went public in 2012. She stepped down as COO in May 2022.

“The Meta business is strong and well-positioned for the future, so this feels like the right time to step away.” Sandberg continued. The erstwhile COO remarked, however, that she would become an adviser to the company after May 2024. Sandberg was the lead architect of Facebook’s business model driven by digital advertising, according to the Guardian.

Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO, thanked Sandberg for “the extraordinary contributions you have made to our company and community over the years” in a comment. He continued: “Your dedication and guidance have been instrumental in driving our success and I am grateful for your unwavering commitment to me and Meta over the years.”

Prior to joining Meta, Sandberg was Google’s vice president of global online sales and operations. She also had senior roles at both the World Bank and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In her early years at Facebook, she was often referred to as the “adult supervision” for a company run by a very young founder.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg teamed up to grow Facebook’s revenue, from roughly $150 million in 2007 to more than $3.7 billion in 2021. By the time Sandberg stepped down as COO, Meta had posted a total annual revenue of $116.6 billion. Its share price has gained more than 860 percent since its 2012 initial public offering.

Sandberg’s tenure not without issues

In a June 2022 Facebook post announcing Sandberg’s departure as COO, Zuckerberg lauded his second-in-command for teaching him “how to run a company.” He praised the 54-year-old tech executive for establishing Facebook’s ads businesses, hiring great people and forging Meta’s current management culture.

Aside from these, Sandberg also helped oversee Meta’s massive rebranding in 2021. This rebranding sought to reflect the company’s ambitions to reorient itself around building an immersive digital world called the “metaverse.” Meta’s ambitious spending on that project sparked concerns from shareholders and was followed by major job cuts at the company.

It was also during her tenure as COO when the company faced growing scrutiny over a range of issues. These involved everything from accusations of undermining democracy and abetting genocide to harming teen users. (Related: Facebook Files show more government collusion to destroy the First Amendment.)

Sandberg’s stint at Meta is not without controversies – including the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which she admitted the company had been too slow to react to. Also, Facebook came under fire after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol was organized on the platform.

Moreover, the business model she pioneered also elicited concerns about registered users’ data being utilized for this endeavor.

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