The days of the celebrity COO at Meta are over. If you're looking for the successor to Sheryl Sandberg—someone writing best-selling manifestos and touring the talk show circuit—you're going to be disappointed. The current Meta Chief Operating Officer, Javier Olivan, is basically the opposite of that. He’s the guy who stays in the shadows while Mark Zuckerberg pivots the entire company toward artificial intelligence and the metaverse.
It’s a massive shift.
For over a decade, the "adult in the room" narrative defined the role. Sandberg was the public face of Meta's (then Facebook's) monetization strategy. She was the shield. But when she stepped down in 2022, the company didn't just replace a person; they replaced an entire philosophy of leadership. Olivan isn't a public-facing diplomat. He’s an engineer and a growth hacker who has been with the company since 2007.
The Invisible Engine: Why Javier Olivan Is Different
Honestly, most people couldn't pick Javier Olivan out of a lineup. That’s intentional. While the previous Meta Chief Operating Officer was a brand unto herself, Olivan is focused on the plumbing. He’s a Spanish-born executive who originally led the company’s international growth. Think about that for a second. He was the one figuring out how to make Facebook work in Brazil, India, and Japan when the app was still mostly an American college thing.
He wins through data. Not speeches.
His promotion signaled a return to Meta’s engineering roots. You see, the company was bloated. It had too many layers of middle management and too much focus on PR and policy. When Zuckerberg announced the "Year of Efficiency" in 2023, Olivan was the architect behind the scenes. He wasn't there to hold hands; he was there to trim the fat and make sure the ad machine—the thing that actually pays for all those expensive GPUs—kept humming along without friction.
From Growth Lead to Operational Kingpin
It’s wild how much influence Olivan had before he even got the title. He oversaw the integration of WhatsApp and Instagram. If you’ve noticed how Meta’s apps feel more connected now—like being able to share a Reel across platforms with one tap—that’s the Olivan touch. He prioritizes "cross-app" functionality. He wants the ecosystem to be a closed loop where users never have to leave.
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The Ad Machine vs. The Reality Labs Drain
The Meta Chief Operating Officer has a job that is, frankly, kind of a nightmare right now. They have to manage a business that makes billions in profit while the CEO spends billions on a future that might not exist yet. It’s a balancing act. On one side, you have the "Family of Apps" (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp). On the other, you have Reality Labs, the division losing roughly $4 billion a quarter on VR and AR.
Olivan's primary goal? Efficiency.
He has been ruthless about ROI. Under his watch, Meta shifted its focus toward "Advantage+," an AI-driven ad tool that basically automates the entire process for small businesses. It used to take a human hours to tweak an ad campaign. Now, the AI does it in seconds. This move was crucial because Apple’s privacy changes (ATT) absolutely nuked Meta’s old way of tracking users. Olivan had to rebuild the tracking engine from the ground up using first-party data and machine learning.
It worked. The stock price recovered. But the internal culture changed forever.
Why the "Leaner" Meta Matters
You've probably heard about the layoffs. Thousands of people gone. This was the first time in the company's history they actually shrank. Olivan was tasked with flattening the organization. He removed the "managers of managers" to make the company move faster. In the tech world, we call this "increasing the signal-to-noise ratio."
Less talk. More code.
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The AI Pivot: A New Mandate for the COO
The role of Meta Chief Operating Officer in 2026 is no longer about managing "Lean In" circles. It is about GPU clusters. It’s about making sure Meta has the infrastructure to compete with OpenAI and Google. Olivan has to oversee the supply chain for these chips, which are incredibly hard to get and cost a fortune.
If Meta can’t lead in AI, they become a legacy social media company. Like MySpace, but with better filters.
Olivan handles the logistics of this transition. While Zuckerberg talks about the "Llama" large language models, Olivan is the one making sure those models are integrated into the ad auction system. He’s making sure the AI can generate "creative" for advertisers automatically. If an advertiser wants to see their product on a beach in Hawaii, the AI generates that image. Olivan’s job is to ensure that tech is scalable and doesn't break the servers.
What Most People Get Wrong About Meta's Leadership
There is this lingering idea that Meta is a one-man show. Sure, Zuckerberg has the majority of the voting power. He can’t be fired. But the Meta Chief Operating Officer is the one who translates "Zuck's" visions into actual spreadsheets and deadlines.
People think the COO is just a "Business Person."
Actually, Olivan is a Stanford MBA, but he’s an electrical engineer by trade. He looks at the company like a giant circuit board. If a component isn't adding value, he desolders it. This is why you see Meta killing off experimental projects much faster than they used to. They aren't interested in "maybe" anymore. They are interested in "now."
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The Relationship with the Board
The board of directors loves this. They wanted stability after the volatile years of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the subsequent Congressional hearings. They wanted someone who wouldn't make headlines. Olivan is a safe pair of hands. He’s technical, he’s predictable, and he’s obsessed with the bottom line.
Real-World Impact: What This Means for You
If you’re a creator or a business owner, the shift in the Meta Chief Operating Officer's priorities affects your wallet directly.
- AI-First Distribution: Your content is no longer shown to people based solely on who they follow. It’s shown based on what the AI thinks they want. This "Discovery Engine" shift was a massive operational undertaking led by Olivan.
- Monetization of WhatsApp: This is the next big frontier. Olivan knows that WhatsApp is the most under-monetized asset in the world. Expect to see "Click-to-WhatsApp" ads everywhere.
- Hardware Integration: As Quest headsets and Ray-Ban Meta glasses become more common, the COO has to figure out how to sell hardware—something the company was historically bad at.
Navigating the New Era of Meta
The era of the "celebrity executive" is dead at Menlo Park. Javier Olivan has proven that you don't need a public persona to be one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley. He has successfully navigated the company through its most turbulent financial period and repositioned it as an AI powerhouse.
It wasn't pretty. It involved a lot of people losing their jobs and a lot of internal friction. But the results speak for themselves. Meta is leaner, faster, and more profitable than it was during the peak of the Sandberg years.
Actionable Insights for Navigating Meta’s Current Structure:
- Focus on AI-Driven Ads: If you are still manually targeting your audience on Meta, you are losing money. The current leadership has optimized the platform for "Broad Targeting" where the algorithm does the work. Trust the machine.
- Pivot to Reels and Video: The operational focus is 100% on competing with TikTok. The "Discovery Engine" favors short-form video over almost everything else.
- Watch WhatsApp for Business: This is the next "Gold Rush." The company is pouring resources into business messaging. Getting in early on WhatsApp automation will likely yield the highest ROI over the next 24 months.
- Privacy-First Marketing: Understand that the "old" ways of tracking are gone. Implement the Conversions API (CAPI) to ensure your data is feeding the Meta AI correctly. Without this, your ad spend is essentially a guess.