Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced Rick Kelley as its new Head of Meta in Ireland.
He will take up the position from 4 April, taking over from Gareth Lambe who has led Meta in Ireland for 10 years.
Mr Kelley will continue in his current role as global Vice President of the Gaming & App Monetisation Solutions organisation within Meta's Global Business Group in addition to the responsibility for Head of Meta Ireland.
He joined the Facebook company in 2009 and in his current role he leads an organisation that works with game developers to bring their games to people who use Facebook Products through marketing and advertising.
Prior to joining Meta, Mr Kelley spent seven years establishing and leading similar teams for Yahoo! in both the US and Spain.
"It's an exciting time for Meta as we are on the journey to build the metaverse and I'm excited and inspired by the prospect of leading Meta Ireland through the next chapter of its evolution," Mr Kelley said.
Facebook changed its name to Meta in October last year amid mounting criticism and accusations that it was putting profit before safety.
Last week, the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appeared virtually before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media, and claimed that Facebook had fuelled ethnic violence in certain parts of the world.
"Some of the most egregious harms caused by the decisions made in the shiny, glass headquarters of Facebook in Dublin have been in faraway places like Myanmar and Ethiopia," she said.
Meta has denied Ms Haugen's accusations and says that it has invested billions of dollars in safety and security.
"Contrary to claims about our company, we've always had the commercial incentive to remove harmful content from our platform," a Meta spokesperson said.
