Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s head of communication and policy, is resigning after leading the company’s communications and pl icy teams for the past ten years.
According to a Facebook post on Schrage’s public page, he says it’s time for him to start a new chapter:
As our community and global impact expanded, our challenge to strike a healthy balance has become more urgent and essential. I’ve enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to help meet that challenge. After more than a decade at Facebook, I’ve decided it’s time to start a new chapter in my life. Leading policy and communications for hyper growth technology companies is a joy — but it’s also intense and leaves little room for much else.
For a while now, Schrage had been in talks with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg about leaving this company Schrage will lead the search to find Facebook’s next head of communications and policy, as well as stay on the manage the transition once somebody is hired. He will then act as an adviser for special projects after officially leaving his role.
Scharge first began discussing leaving the company with Zukerberg and Sandberg long before the 2016 US presidential election. After the election, the two asked Schrage to remain in his role, which he agreed to do.
Schrage played an important roll in Facebook’s response to the Cambridge Analytica user data scandal. He is the executive behind Facebook’s “Hard Questions” editorial on the Facebook blog — a series that aims to give more transparency on Facebook’s part around the more complex business issues it faces. “We hope this will be a place not only to explain some of our choices but also explore hard questions,” wrote Schrage at the launch of the series in June 2017.
Schrage has been busy managing Facebook’s research initiative, which is meant to determine social media’s impact on elections that was announced in April, according to the Recode report that broke the story about Schrage’s departure.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg released the following statement on Schrage’s decision to resign:
Elliot is one of the most creative and strategic people I have worked with. He’s been instrumental in building our policy and communications teams as well as pushing many of our key initiatives — including the recent publication of our community standards, data about our effectiveness enforcing those standards and the creation of an independent election commission. Mark and I look forward to his ongoing advice over the years ahead.