Javier Olivan is taking over as the new Chief Operating Officer of Meta. Here’s everything you need to know about him.
Who is Javier Olivan?
Javier Olivan has worked at Meta for more than 14 years. He has a vast experience with leading teams and handling several projects such as Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp. During the last 15 years, he was crucial behind the scenes working for Meta’s growth. Additionally, he was instrumental in helping Facebook expand to several nations such as India, Indonesia, Brasil, Russia, and Japan. Currently, as Meta’s Chief Growth Officer, he is managing features and functions that span Facebook and other applications under the company.
Before joining Facebook in 2007, Olivian worked for NTT and Siemens. He grew up in Spain’s Pyrenees region and has a degree in Electrical and Industrial engineering from the University of Navarra. Additionally, he is also the holder of a master’s degree in Business administration from Stanford University. When he joined Facebook, it was relatively young with about 40 million users. Today, the platform has a total of 3.6 billion users. With his new role. he will be leading infrastructure and development at Meta. Additionally, he will also look into advertising and business products.
More on the role of the Chief Operating Officer
After 14 years as the Chief Operating Officer of Meta, Sheryl Sandberg is leaving the company. “When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years. Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life,” wrote Sandberg on Facebook. “This role will be different from what Sheryl has done. It will be a more traditional COO role where Javi will be focused internally and operationally, building on his strong track record of making our execution more efficient and rigorous,” stated Zuckerberg.
As per Brian Wieser, Javier Olivan will have less autonomy compared to Sandberg. This is because Meta is now a mature firm having $118 billion in revenue. Wieser is the global head of business intelligence at GroupM, an ad agency.