Meta’s Sheryl Sandberg to leave board

META Platforms director and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said she will step down from the board this year, exiting her last official role at the social media company she helped grow from a promising internet startup into a digital-advertising stalwart.

“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,” Sandberg wrote Wednesday in a post on Meta’s flagship Facebook network. “Going forward, I will serve as an advisor to the company, and I will always be there to help the Meta teams.”

Sandberg, 54, joined Facebook in 2008 as No 2 to co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to oversee the fledgling company’s advertising, partnerships, business development and operations, following stints at Google, McKinsey & Co and the US Department of the Treasury. She left her job as COO of the company, by then rebranded as Meta, in 2022.

During her time at the tech giant, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, Sandberg was key to turning the social network into a money-making machine and one of the world’s biggest companies. In 2022 Meta brought in almost US$117 billion in revenue, most of it from targeted advertising.

She often served as the public face of the business, particularly among policymakers and regulators. As criticism of Facebook and its platforms mounted in more recent years, including bruising scandals over lapses in privacy and content moderation, Sandberg increasingly retreated from the spotlight.