Meta Platforms Badge Post (July 2023)

🎉 FRIDAY WAS MY LAST DAY WITH META 🎉

Five years and I could not be more grateful. Or proud, frankly. 💙

It’s humbling to work among so many smart, kind people. 38K -> 112k. I was in the 88% in tenure. To be a part of that growth, to work at this type of scale & feel like a valued individual is an experience in and of itself. 💕

I had a leadership role in creating a more predictable approach to risk mitigation, including high risk events and elections. I led the exceptional operational response to Covid-19. Briefed senior leaders on integrity risks. My VP knew that in 3 hours or less I could understand an integrity issue at a Company level, troubleshoot it, produce exec-ready recommendations. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, I worked closely with Product teams to create features to give Afghans more agency over their social media presence. If I do nothing meaningful again in my life I did this. 🛳❤️

That was half my job. I was a people manager, with 26 directs including several for 3 years and my longest running direct (4 years!). I mentored more than a dozen individual contributors into management.  After the crush of 2020 and spring 2021 we had major turnover. I tried something different: coaching the team in integrity. Situational leadership, influential communications, reflection and projection as a growth tool. 📈

One of my fears in joining tech was that I wouldn’t belong. It turns out that the non-tech side of the integrity space is composed of civil society/former government, lawyers, and former military. In former military folks in particular I found comradery, shared values around service, and people who really had my back. I am deeply grateful. 💛

I learned so much. I made mistakes that I’ll never make again. I grew. I gained a voice. I am known for giving insightful feedback, for empowering others, for being ahead of the curve.

This is all a long way of saying that FB/Meta showed me that I was smart, capable, and belong among some of the brightest minds in the world. ❤️

Hot take: I don't agree that social media companies are in chaos. They are an immature industry. It's a soft target because it's fickle, and has made big, visible mistakes. The business community judges tech as if it were a mature industry and it's not. Tech companies, on account of wild growth, lost grounding in their purpose. Drive technological innovation or drive profits. I'm not sure that both can be done at this scale without a robust and more costly approach to operational accountability. The clock is ticking, given the momentum in the regulatory space, the fear being stoked around AI, that tech/social media companies can't not have more accountable - and efficient - structures for much longer. 🧩

🎬 NEXT STEPS:
I’m looking to combine my three loves of people, tech, and humanitarian action. I have a lot to offer and enjoy it. Or make me an offer I can’t refuse, also in the social good category. Or F1. 😎

Thanks for being with me on this journey. 🌻