Meta has appointed Rick Kelley as its Irish head of operations. Kelley will take over from outgoing Irish Meta head Gareth Lambe, who held the job for 10 years.

Kelley will step into his new role on 4 April. As well as becoming head of Meta in Ireland, he will hold on to his current position as the company’s global vice president of gaming and app monetisation.

In that role he leads a division that works with game developers to bring their games to people who use Facebook products through marketing and advertising. He has teams based in Dublin and regions around the world including the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

Originally from Boston, Kelley lives in Dublin with his family. He joined Facebook (as it was then known) in 2009 when the global team had less than 1,000 staff.

He led Facebook’s EMEA mid-market sales team based in Dublin. In that job, he was responsible for expanding the company’s advertising efforts into emerging brands, ad agencies and large direct response advertisers.

Prior to joining the social media giant, he spent seven years establishing and leading similar teams for Yahoo in the US and Spain. He is also an active investor, board member and advisor for numerous start-ups.

He has been a coach at Broadford Rovers Football Club in Dublin for the past eight years.

Commenting on his appointment, Kelley said, “I’m dedicated to ensuring a long and prosperous future for Meta in Ireland, its employees and the communities it serves. 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.”

The company is currently exploring AR and VR opportunities through the ‘metaverse’. However, its entry into the metaverse has not been without its challenges. The tech giant has recently had to take precautionary measures against allegations of groping and harassment taking place in Horizon, its virtual online platform.

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