A Facebook executive reshuffle will see Will Cathcart and Fidji Simo moving up the ladder, as product and WhatsApp executives Chris Cox and Chris Daniels announce their resignations.
The note from Mark Zuckerberg with details on the reshuffle comes after a week of bad news for the social media company.
Go deeper with GlobalData
There was a 14-hour disruption, which left Facebook itself, WhatsApp and Instagram inaccessible, and revelations that Facebook is under criminal investigation for its misuse of data, according to The New York Times.
Facebook has not yet explained the outage, meanwhile, the federal investigation suggests the firm is still selling its goldmine of personal data inappropriately, even after the scandal and repercussions around Cambridge Analytica.
Who will replace Facebook’s top product exec?
Amid these problems, Chris Cox, ex-chief product officer hinted in a Facebook post detailing his resignation, that he was not fully committed with the latest proposals to focus Facebook around private messaging.
He said in the post: “As Mark has outlined, we are turning a new page in our product direction, focused on an encrypted interoperable, messaging network.
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By GlobalData“Its product vision attuned to the subject matter of today: a modern communications platform that balances expression, safety, security and privacy.
“This will be a big project and we will need leaders who are excited to see the new direction through.”
Hi everyone, I just posted this internally at Facebook and wanted to share with you all.—It is with great sadness…
Posted by Chris Cox on Thursday, March 14, 2019
Zuckerberg’s Facebook note said Cox’s departure had been on the cards “for a few years”.
Zuckerberg added: “Since we have now decided on the basic direction of our family of apps for the next few years, I do not plan on immediately appointing anyone to fill Chris’s role in the near term.”
Climbing the career ladder at Facebook
Chris Daniels, who managed WhatsApp within the Facebook family and was with Microsoft for five years before, has also resigned and is being replaced by Will Cathcart.
Will Cathcart was vice president of Product Management at Facebook.
According to Cathcart’s LinkedIn profile, he has been at Facebook for nine years and was a product manager at Google for four years before.
Zuckerberg said of Cathcart in his note: “In his career here, Will has helped lead our teams focused on security and integrity, and he believes deeply in providing end-to-end encryption to everyone in the world across our services.”
Zuckerberg named Fidji Simo as new head of the Facebook app, stepping into Cathcart’s old role.
Simo was previously head of Video, Games and Monetisation and has been with Facebook eight years following a move from eBay.
