META Meta Platforms Inc

By Deepa Seetharaman 

Facebook Inc. is overhauling its management structure in one of the most extensive corporate makeovers in its 14-year history.

In arguably the most significant move, the company put longtime executive Chris Cox in charge of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger in an effort that will integrate its high-profile acquisitions more deeply into the larger company. Facebook's product and engineering divisions will now be carved up into three main divisions, including one focused on emerging technologies, such as blockchain, the foundation of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

The executive shuffle, announced internally Tuesday, doesn't affect the responsibilities of Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, the company's No. 2 executive. More than a dozen executives will change roles or take on additional responsibilities through the restructuring, which takes effect immediately.

A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the changes, which were first reported by tech news site Recode and go into effect immediately.

One former Facebook executive said the moves appeared to be designed to surround CEO Mark Zuckerberg with his most trusted executives as the company faces a range of new challenges.

"This reads like Mark putting his people back in charge. Virtually all of these people are seen as people that Mark believes are technically proficient and understand his vision," the executive said.

The moves give additional responsibilities to several executives who have worked alongside Mr. Zuckerberg since Facebook's early days. Mr. Cox, who joined Facebook in 2005, will run one of the three new groups within Facebook's product and engineering ranks called "Family of apps." Mr. Cox, previously chief product officer of the main Facebook app, will now oversee product decisions made across Facebook's services.

The company also is placing two other longtime Facebook executives in key positions at WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app that Facebook acquired in 2014 for $22 billion, and Instagram, the photo- and video-sharing app that Facebook bought in 2012 for $1 billion and is now a key driver of Facebook's revenue growth.

Chris Daniels, a Facebook executive who joined in 2011, is taking over WhatsApp following Jan Koum's announcement last week that he was stepping down. Mr. Koum, a WhatsApp co-founder, left after what people familiar with the matter described as a dispute over plans to introduce ads in WhatsApp and frustration about working at a large company.

Adam Mosseri, who runs the Facebook news feed and joined the company nearly a decade ago, will move to Instagram, where he will run product. John Hegeman, the Facebook executive who helped create the company's ad-auction system, will now oversee the news feed.

Facebook also is creating a second major division called "New Platforms and Infra" to be led by Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's chief technical officer. This group will tackle new technologies and products, including a new blockchain group to be led by David Marcus, who has run the Facebook Messenger chat app since 2014. Within this new division, Facebook is creating a new product team focused on privacy that will be run by Facebook's most senior engineering executive, Jay Parikh, who has been at Facebook since 2009.

The third new unit is called "Central Product Services" and will be run by longtime growth executive Javier Olivan. Mr. Olivan's group will oversee product and engineering efforts for ads, security and growth.

Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2018 19:40 ET (23:40 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.