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Facebook exec Matt Idema joins WhatsApp as first COO

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

February 15, 2017 | 3 min read

Facebook has confirmed that its vice president of product marketing Matt Idema is to help WhatsApp expand its business as chief operating officer.

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Facebook exec Matt Idema named as first ever WhatsApp COO

The social media executive will be the first person to fill the role, joining the company Facebook bought for $22bn in 2014 to focus on monetizing the app.

Facebook confirmed the move to Re/code, saying Idema would shift roles in the coming weeks and will report director to WhatsApp co-founder and chief executive Jan Koum.

The company added that despite the shuffle, WhatsApp's anti-ad policy remains unchanged, a statement which echoes a blog post from Koum last January in which he revealed the messaging app was dropping its subscription fees.

"Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today's announcement means we're introducing third-party ads. The answer is no," he said at the time, adding: "Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from. That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight.

"We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam."

WhatsApp's long-term plan for building out its business remains under wraps. However, last summer it revealed it would start sharing user data with Facebook to track basic metrics about how people use its service and offer up better ads to Facebook users.

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