Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg announces major investments in Ireland

Today, Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg was in Dublin to attend a series of events including Facebook’s ‘Gather’ in Croke Park at which she delivered the keynote address and announced investments in Ireland in 2019.

In her remarks, Sheryl Sandberg affirmed Facebook’s continued commitment to its Irish operation, which is the largest outside of its headquarters in California. Building on last year’s Ballsbridge Campus expansion plan, Sheryl announced that Facebook plan to hire 1,000 people across 60 teams in Ireland in 2019. The jobs created will span the engineering, safety, legal, policy, marketing and sales teams.

In addition, Sheryl Sandberg revealed that Facebook is tripling its investment in online safety programmes run by the National Anti-Bullying Centre (ABC) and SpunOut.ie, bringing the total investment to €1 million. This money will go towards supporting important research conducted by ABC, expanding the nationwide online safety training program for teachers and parents of secondary school students, and creating an online safety resource for teens in partnership with SpunOut.ie.

Speaking about Ireland’s strategic importance to Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg talked about her pride in the growth that the company has undergone here; from an initial 30 people in 2009 to now employing over 4,000 in four locations around the country in counties Cork, Meath, and Dublin. Over the past nine years, Facebook has built a diverse presence in Ireland with employees working on a range of teams across the family of apps including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus.

In her keynote, Sheryl Sandberg also took the opportunity to outline Facebook’s priorities in 2019. Acknowledging the need to earn users’ trust, she noted that, “Facebook is a very different company to what it was in 2016 or even a year ago”. She detailed the steps the company has taken, and will be taking, in key priority areas including “the safety and security of Facebook’s users; the commitment to cracking down on fake accounts and false news; strengthening defences against election interference; and being even more transparent in how it operates and makes decisions, to make itself more publicly accountable”.

Sheryl Sandberg was in Dublin attending ‘Gather’, an event for over 500 small and medium businesses from Ireland and across the EMEA region to hear from experts on industry insights and tools available on Facebook and Instagram to grow their business.

At the event, Minister of State for EU Affairs, Helen McEntee TD delivered an address to over 500 SMEs on how Ireland and Europe are getting ready for Brexit.

A live stream of Sheryl Sandberg’s keynote is available to watch on: https://www.facebook.com/facebookdublin