About

Led by director and associate general counsel Peter O’Neill, Facebook’s International Commercial Ads team in Ireland is responsible for deals comprising 50% of Facebook’s global revenue. Highlighting the tangible value his team brings to the Facebook organisation worldwide, the team can point to its combined effort and expertise in achieving something often elusive in in-house circles. The bulk of the team’s work is to handle legal matters surrounding Facebook’s international advertising business, acting ‘promptly and effectively’ and with a ‘commercial pragmatism’ which facilitates and supports the business ‘to do what it does best’. In supporting the social media company’s advertising business through their ‘high quality, pragmatic commercial advice’, the team deals with revenue generating contracts. A company that is at the forefront of the social media age, Facebook’s business is, in the words of O’Neill – ‘constantly changing, iterating and improving’ – which brings with it certain challenges. These include digesting large quantities of technical and financial information and being flexible in adapting to market conditions, new products and a constantly evolving business. In efforts to become more efficient, the team have collaborated closely with other areas of the business on developing and implementing an innovative automation tool and contract management system for certain strategically important deals. This initiative has improved efficiency from a legal and operational perspective. In addition to advertising revenue, O’Neill cites another measure of success being the way in which internal partners ‘readily approach [the team] with legal issues and are trusting of us to take the steps strictly necessary to protect the business and not slow it down’. O’Neill’s team is crucial to the future growth and expansion of Facebook, servicing the businesses’ mission to make the world more open and connected.