Mark D’Arcy, Facebook Vice President of Global Business Marketing and Chief Creative Officer, announced on Monday he will quit his 10-year career at the US tech giant.
Mr D’Arcy said in a Facebook post he was “immensely proud” of teams at the company and “grateful” to have worked with and learn from people while in his role.
According to MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, D’Arcy decided to leave Facebook and would work until September 7.
Michelle Klein, Vice-President of Global Customer Marketing, will take his post in interim.
A Facebook spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: “We are grateful for his many contributions, and we wish him the best.”
The former Facebook exec previously led creative strategists in 18 cities across the world for Facebook, where he helped create ideas on marketing ideas aimed at building growth for the company.
According to his Linkedin profile, D’Arcy joined the Menlo Park-based firm in 2011 to explore Facebook’s creative potential and later, founded the Facebook Creative Council in 2020.
Prior to his role at Facebook, D’Arcy served at Global Media Group, Time Warner’s parent firm, as its Chief Operating Officer, where he leveraged the massive company’s assets across film, television, digital, and other mediums to boost the company’s marketing partnerships.
His departure comes just months after he wrote in a blog post about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which had “accelerated ten years of digital advancement in six months.”
His tenure also comes as Oculus users protested plans to test advertisements in headsets, which the company says would provide revenues to further develop the VR platform.
He stated at the time,
“Privacy and personalisation are not a zero-sum game. People deserve both, and it’s possible to build a future Internet that prioritises both. This starts with giving people insight into, and command over, how their data is used. At the same time, data should still flow responsibly so that it can continue to support the services and experiences that enhance our daily lives”
Google Exec Defects to Facebook
The news comes months after similar developments at US tech giant Google, who lost several key executives, including Joshua To, former Google Design Director of Hardware and Services.
Mr To, who joined Facebook’s Reality Labs headed by Andrew Bosworth, also previously served as the former Director of Google Workspace and VR/AR. Google later stated it had shuttered plans to launch a VR solution to compete with Facebook’s Oculus Quest headset, reports stated.
Additional execs have defected to Facebook amid the tech firm’s huge recruitment push for new talent at Reality Labs, where 10,000 people, or 20 percent of Facebook’s total staff, joined the division.
Facebook has seen immense growth in its Reality Labs department, leading the company to top sales of VR headsets globally and accounting for 52.4 percent of total shipments year-on-year in Q1.
The tech company also posted over 700 fresh positions at Reality Labs following statements from Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder, who said the firm would shift to become a “Metaverse company”.
