Meta Platforms Inc (META)

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Facebook hires new U.S. ad sales chief, expands Graph Search's reach
12:00 PM ET · FB

Facebook (FB +0.3%) has hired David Lawenda, formerly Univision's ad sales chief, to head its U.S. ad sales efforts. The hiring comes two months after North American ad sales chief and 7-year Facebook vet Tom Arrix left, and a day after Flurry announced it has hired top Facebook ad strategy exec Grady Burnett to be its COO.
North America accounted for 47% of Facebook's Q2 revenue ($848M out of $1.81B).
News of the hiring comes as Facebook expands Graph Search's reach to include status updates, comments, and photo captions, and check-in info shared with a particular user. Until now, Graph Search (made available this summer to all U.S. users) was focused on profile data and user "likes."
If users take a liking to Graph Search, it could provide a large boost to Facebook's search ad revenue, particularly given the ad targeting possibilities for business/product-related searches. But it remains to be seen how interested users will be in performing the kind of complex, multi-part queries Graph Search enables.