Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them. Besides the Facebook app and Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram as well as companies like Oculus, Masquerade and CrowdTangle are also part of the Facebook family. In Germany, more than 32 million people are using Facebook each month.

In 2010, Facebook opened the first office in Germany in Hamburg. The conscious decision for the city was based on the ideal mix of media, agencies and companies, the Hansestadt has to offer. In 2012, we opened our Berlin office since then our team in the German capital has rapidly grown, our office, located just a few steps from the government district, plays an important role in our regular exchange with the world of politics.

Our teams work across Marketing, HR, Policy, Sales and Communications. Our mission is to bring the world closer together and that includes connecting people with people and to businesses and vice versa.

Our teams help German businesses to grow their brands enabling them to build, strengthen and empower communities across Facebook and its family of apps allowing businesses to authentically connect with the right people at the right time to build communities around their mission and products.

Here are some examples of companies and groups that our teams support.

Business owners like Jutta Zeisset successfully make use of the high potential of Facebook groups. Jutta expanded her business mainly thanks to the use of social media. As a result, she received positive feedback from a lot of other SMBs and saw a huge interest in the exchange amongst business owners. She then started the Facebook Group “social media for rural regions", which by now has over 500 members.

This Facebook group was founded to offer a place for dads to connect and exchange experiences about everything related to being a dad. What matters most for group founder Uwe Karsten is, that the dads are connected and can rely on a strong community: A single father who did not have any toys for his little daughter received help from fathers all over Germany because of a post in the Facebook group. Just a few days later, the little girl had a box full of toys the other fathers had given as present.

I have always been excited to see how brands find ways of storytelling. This love for brands was the reason why I pursued a career in the media and ads industry. And this excitement finally made me decide to join Facebook. I was simply fascinated by the opportunities mobile provides brands for storytelling today and the role Facebook plays in shaping the world of advertising. I am motivated every day to be part of this change and support German businesses to build their brands on Facebook and Instagram.

At Facebook, we talk about your career as a jungle gym. This describes the idea that modern career progression is not made by climbing a ladder, where you can solely move up another rung, but that lateral movement is as needed and beneficial to a person's professional development.

For me, the jungle gym has meant a number of interesting opportunities. When I started at Facebook in 2014, I supported the Managing Director for Central Europe as an Executive Assistant. This role provided me with the wonderful opportunity to gain a deep understanding of the organization and work with a wide range of international cross-functional teams. One of the projects, that I am most proud of, was being the project lead for one of the in-market visits of our COO, Sheryl Sandberg. Today, the jungle gym led me to the position as Strategy Partner, where I provide German businesses with consultancy on how to build their brands on Facebook and Instagram. What I love about this role is, that it enables me to have my client’s best interests at heart and drive real results for them.

Before starting at Facebook, I already knew about the company's open culture. Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. Along with this mission, the foundation of our company culture is formed by strong values, like “Be Bold”, “Move Fast”, “Be Open” and “Focus on Impact”.

But what surprised me the most, is that this culture is not just part of our posters on the wall, but it really comes to life every day. The environment enables you to move fast. The company rewards creative problem solving and continuous improvement. And it encourages you to make mistakes and learn from them. I would have never imagined, how much these values would guide the way I work and the decisions I make each day. The culture provides me with an environment that allows me to thrive and do what I do best.

I was born in Italy, but grew up in Venezuela. I married a German and have three kids born in Munich. I had completely lost contact with my South American cousins, but then I found them through Facebook. With my old company, I got a chance to go on a business trip to Argentina in 2012. On that trip my cousins drove 8 hours to meet me to reconnect. If Facebook did that for my family, what could it do for thousands of other families? That’s why I joined. For me, working at Facebook is an opportunity to basically shape business in Germany, if you can replicate the good that Facebook did in my personal life to business, wow, that’s such a huge powerful message. It was going to the first Boost your Business event that Facebook runs where I got to see the real impact we’re making on businesses first hand. I met with a company Vertikale Windkraft and they told me that they were down to their last 7 euro and 30 cent when they booked their first Facebook ad. That ad generated a lead and that lead to a sale and saved their business. That made me really proud. The freedom you are given at Facebook to build the market is insane and it’s up to you to dream big.

I started working for Facebook over 6 years ago as one of the first employees in Germany. Back then, Facebook was still in startup mode, so I joined a small sales team working with FMCG clients at that time. I consulted large FMCG companies on their journey transforming their businesses digitally and been able to help them see the value of Facebook marketing solutions was exciting. I love to build businesses and at Facebook, I've always had and have the chance to do what I love most. Together with a rockstar team we've built a strong FMCG business in Germany and later also added Retail clients to the portfolio.

Two years ago, I felt that it was time to move on to another role. I joined the Instagram team as a Brand Development Lead for Central Europe extending my scope to a broader regional level and focusing on growing the Instagram business.

When I joined, Facebook was still a small start-up. We had only around 15 million people in Germany using the platform. Instagram and Whatsapp did not belong to the family at that time. Building a FMCG business at that time meant not just only working with clients but also taking care of sales planning, marketing and other topics. We moved fast and took a bold approach to build our business. As part of a small team we always helped each other out, nothing at Facebook was somebody else`s problem.

Now our teams are bigger, the company has become more professional but our values stayed the same. As Facebook became a larger platform, the perception of Facebook as a company and advertising platform changed in Germany. Facebook is now a mirror of society, while there are lots of great groups, conversations on positive topics, there is also people expressing their hate and negative sentiments. As a result, Facebooks community policies have been improved and we work with German organisations to detect hate speech content and delete it if it is against our policies.

Personal: When I met Sheryl 5 years ago for the first time I was already truly impressed by her genuine and warm character. She visited our office in Hamburg and encouraged us to ask her the hard questions. Since then I have met her several times on women`s events and it is always great to see how she inspires women to lean in, speak up and stand up for what they want in their professional and personal life.

Professional: I always love our annual Global Marketing Summit conference where the global sales team comes together to set the plan for the year, to learn from each other and get the latest product updates. It is a great opportunity to connect with our global colleagues and have a great party together. Facebook invests a lot of time, money and resources to make this an unforgettable experience for everyone.

Facebook aims to connect people around the world. It is company that is driven by a mission and while we're building a strong business we also want to build social value. Since Facebooks business is growing so quickly it also offers great opportunities for people at Facebook to grow and to develop their career. People are in the center of everything that Facebook does. That also holds true for the employees. Facebook offers great perks and benefits that go beyond what I have seen in other companies.