Shares of Meta Platforms were up nearly 2% in early trading Thursday, coming after longtime COO Sheryl Sandberg — one of the most powerful women execs in the tech industry — announced she was stepping down from the role.
In after-hours trading Wednesday, Meta’s stock price had dropped as much as 3% on the news that Sandberg, a 14-year veteran of the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, was departing. On Thursday, broader market indexes were flat or down amid the rise in Meta shares.
On May 28, Sandberg informed Meta of her decision to resign from her position as COO “after a transition period,” according to an SEC filing. She will continue to serve on the company’s board of directors. Meta’s board expects to appoint Javier Olivan, most recently chief growth officer and VP of cross-Meta product and infrastructure, to succeed Sandberg after a transition period.
“When I took this job in 2008, I hoped I would be in this role for five years,” Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. “Fourteen years later, it is time for me to write the next chapter of my life. I am not entirely sure what the future will bring – I have learned no one ever is. But I know it will include focusing more on my foundation and philanthropic work, which is more important to me than ever given how critical this moment is for women.”
When Sandberg joined CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook in 2008, she helped convert the platform into an advertising powerhouse — and one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the tech industry.
Zuckerberg, in a post on Facebook, wrote that he doesn’t plan to replace Sandberg’s role “in our existing structure. I’m not sure that would be possible since she’s a superstar who defined the COO role in her own unique way. But even if it were possible, I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products.”
