It's a bang: Sheryl Sandberg, one of the most prominent managers in the technology industry, is leaving the Facebook parent company Meta after 14 years.

Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post that she would step down as chief operating officer this fall.

She gave no concrete reasons, nor did she give any future professional steps.

"It's time for me to write the next chapter in my life," she said, noting that she wants to devote more time to her foundation and charitable activities in general.

She also mentioned that she is getting married this summer.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

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Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also did not discuss reasons for Sandberg's departure in a separate post, focusing on words of praise.

He called the 52-year-old manager a "superstar" and a "good friend and partner" whose departure meant the "end of an era".

"It's unusual for a business partnership to last as long as ours." He said he was sad that he would soon be leaving Sandberg.

Javier Olivan is set to succeed him as Chief Operating Officer.

Meanwhile, Sandberg will not completely turn his back on the company and will continue to hold a seat on the board of directors.

Sandberg and Zuckerberg formed the management team for Meta for many years.

As chief operating officer, she was officially number two in the company, but she rivaled Zuckerberg in prominence.

She was considered the architect of the business model, which focuses on online advertising based on the evaluation of user data.

She also represented Meta externally and appeared a lot more polished than Zuckerberg in her appearance.

She has also managed to make a name for herself outside of her regular work, most notably with her career advisor, Lean In, in which she urged women to take more charge of their careers.

She regularly appeared in lists of the most powerful women in business.

Scratches in the image

However, the more the group got caught up in the whirlpool of scandals in recent years, the more her voice in the company seemed to lose weight.

She was less visible in public, but Zuckerberg himself was increasingly in the limelight, for example at hearings in Washington.

Sandberg has not been untouched by affairs herself, either, and has had to accept scratches on her once largely spotless reputation.

For example, when Facebook's work with a communications agency became known a few years ago, which is said to have instigated abusive campaigns against the company's critics and competitors.

Sandberg joined Facebook in 2008.

She came from competitor Google, where she had also helped build the ad business.

Her fortune is estimated at $1.6 billion on the Forbes list.