Javier Olivan

Javier Oliván López (born 1977) is a Spanish business executive who has been chief operating officer of Meta Platforms since 2022, having succeeded Sheryl Sandberg.

Early life and education Oliván was born in 1977 in Sabiñánigo, Huesca, Spain. His father Florián is a retired businessman who ran a hardware store and an arcade, while his mother María Pilar is a retired professor from the Biello Aragón Institute.

Between 1995 and 2002, Oliván studied electrical and industrial engineering at Tecnun, the School of Engineering of the University of Navarra in Pamplona. He then joined Siemens as a research and development engineer in Munich, Germany, where he patented an algorithmic system for digital image processing, before moving to Tokyo, Japan, to work for NTT Data on wireless video technologies.

In 2005, he enrolled in the MBA program at Stanford University, where he took a course that analyzed case studies of startups, including Facebook. As a student, along with several friends, he worked on creating a Spanish-language version of Facebook, called Nosuni. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, reached out and asked Oliván to work for him. He accepted the offer after graduating in 2007. he oversaw the company's international expansioninto new markets and languages. As part of a reorganization in January 2025, Oliván also oversees the business operations of the Reality Labs division.

Other activities He was recognized as a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute in 2014. He is on the board of the non-profit, Endeavor Global. Previously, he was a board member of the e-commerce company Mercado Libre for six years. He is married and has two daughters. He is fluent in five languages, including French, German, and Japanese.