Facebook poaches SAS LatAm head
Facebook has poached a top executive at analytics firm SAS to become its Brazil head.
Conrado Leister will be taking over as Brazil general manager at Facebook eight months after the departure of previous incumbent Marcos Angelini.
Leister's arrival means that Facebook's Latin America head Diego Dzodan will be able to return to his original role. Dzodan had been combining accountability for Brazil with the regional remit since Angelini's departure.
The executive's mission at Facebook will be to bring the social networking firm closer to the enterprise world in a strategy that goes beyond marketing capabilities alone.
The company also has all sorts of legal challenges to deal with in Brazil. This includes an ongoing dispute over the failure to comply with court demands for WhatsApp messaging data for police investigations that even led to the arrest of Facebook's Dzodan.
However, Facebook has been making some effort to debate the local issue of integrity of privacy in communications and has sent senior executives over to Brazil to take part in public events promoted by the country's Supreme Court earlier this year.
With two decades of experience in the technology industry, Conrado Leister had been working for SAS since 2015, his last role being president for the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
Leister had also been doubling up as Brazil head until SAS appointed an internal executive to take over the country's operations last month.
According to the analytics firm, global vice president for sales and field operations Kevin Antram will be taking over as the interim head for Brazil operations. Leister leaves SAS next week.