Meta Chief Revenue Officer to Leave and Start Own Company

Meta Chief Revenue Officer John Hegeman said Tuesday (Nov. 18) that he is leaving the firm after 17 years to start his own company.

Announcing the move in a post on Facebook, Hegeman said he had “decided it’s time to close this chapter and pursue a long-standing dream — starting a new company.”

He did not provide any details about the new company.

Hegeman thanked Meta executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and said that Andrew Bocking will take over as product group lead for ads and business messaging, while Naomi Gleit will become the leader of business artificial intelligence (AI) and other new monetization opportunities.

“Meta’s business is as strong as it has ever been, and the company is very well-positioned for an AI-powered future,” Hegeman said in the post. “That strength comes from the many extraordinary people across so many disciplines who continually push our products forward, day after day.”

According to a biography on the Meta website, Hegeman joined Meta in 2007 and was an engineering leader on the company’s ads system for seven years. Hegeman moved over to the Facebook app in 2016, where he spent five years leading Feed and other parts of the core product experience; returned to ads as product group lead in 2021; and became head of monetization in 2022.

Hegeman also serves on three boards of directors: Jio Platforms Limited, Robinhood Markets and the Center for Election Science, according to the biography.

Reuters reported Tuesday that Hegeman’s announcement came shortly after two other executive changes at Meta. Reuters said that the Financial Times reported last week that the company’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, plans to leave to launch his own startup, while Bloomberg News reported that the company’s head of its business AI unit, Clara Shih, is leaving the company after the unexpected death of her father.

PYMNTS reported Nov. 11 that LeCun’s decision to leave Meta was reported shortly after the company announced that it would cut about 600 roles in its AI unit to make the unit more agile. The restructuring was led by Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang and was part of a move to streamline product and research functions.