Meet the 21 most powerful Facebook advertising execs who keep its $55 billion ad business booming - even as regulation and privacy challenges loom

Instagram; Facebook; John Lamparski/Getty Images for Advertising Week New York; Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Advertising Week New York; Yutong Yuan/Business Insider

(L to R) David Fischer, Jim Squires, Nada Stirratt and Brad Smallwood.

• With more focus on privacy and regulation, Facebook has been shaking up its leadership lately, including expanding David Fischer's role to chief revenue officer.
• Business Insider assembled a list of 21 top Facebook executives who are responsible for setting the company's strategy and working with its seven million advertisers.
• The list reflects how Facebook's leadership is increasingly pitching advertisers formats like Stories, doubling down on its advertising transparency efforts, and betting big on its Watch video section.
  
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Despite a string of data scandals and privacy concerns over the past couple of years, Facebook's advertising business has never been bigger.

Marketers often complain about Facebook and Google's chokehold on digital advertising dollars but few have moved money away from the platform. In fact, Facebook's ad revenue grew 38% to $55 billion in 2018 over 2017.

The company's massive advertising business can be chalked up to sophisticated ad tools and experts that marketers lean on to learn about new products, formats and targeting.

But with looming regulation and Mark Zuckerberg's vision of making the company a more private social network, Facebook's ad business is changing. It's trying to diversify its revenue outside of its main flagship app into Instagram, Messenger and eventually WhatsApp. Instagram in particular is under pressure to ramp up its revenue as people move from feeds to Stories and make e-commerce transactions from the app.

Read more: Facebook's bet on privacy may threaten advertisers' sophisticated targeting, and it could 'dramatically change' its relationship with brands

The shift to broaden Facebook's revenue is reflected in leadership changes. David Fischer, formerly VP of business and marketing partnerships, became chief revenue officer in March, giving him more oversight into revenue across all of Facebook's properties. Longtime sales execs Carolyn Everson and Dan Levy's roles have been tweaked since late last year, too.

Business Insider has compiled a list of the 21 most powerful and important advertising execs at the company. These employees work across multiple teams and departments and span everything from new ad formats and creative to Facebook's work on advertising transparency policies.

Below is an alphabetical list of the executives responsible for setting the social network's strategy amid big shifts that are rippling across the advertising industry.