Nicola Mendelsohn, the woman running Meta's ad machine

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Great Jones has been acquired, Linda Yaccarino starts her CEO job at Twitter, and we profile the woman behind Meta’s advertising machine. Have a great Tuesday! – Getting Meta. For the past decade, Nicola Mendelsohn has been the engine behind much of Meta’s advertising operation. The British ad exec joined then-Facebook in 2013 as its London-based vice president of Europe, Middle East, and Africa before moving to a role as VP of its global business group in 2021.

Then, this February, Meta promoted Mendelsohn to head that global business group—a career advancement that made her one of the most senior women at the tech giant following the exits of Sheryl Sandberg and Marne Levine.

In the new issue of Fortune, I profiled Mendelsohn. Throughout her career ascent, she’s navigated another challenge: a cancer diagnosis. In 2016, the mother of four was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma, a relatively little-known form of blood cancer that 1.2 million people live with around the world. The cancer is considered incurable.

Today, Mendelsohn has no evidence of disease. But follicular lymphoma typically recurs in patients six to eight times throughout their life.

The Meta exec is an optimist, and she believes there will be a cure for the illness within her lifetime. She brings that same attitude to her work at Meta. She stepped into her new job overseeing much of Meta’s $114 billion in annual ad revenue at a difficult time for the tech giant: four rounds of layoffs of at least 21,000 workers; three straight quarters of year-over-year revenue decline, followed, finally, by a year-over-year sales bump last quarter; and a gloomy economic climate for top advertisers, to whom Mendelsohn acts as the face of the company.

Mendelsohn says that her cancer diagnosis didn’t lead her to make any major changes in her life—”still married to the same guy, same job,” she jokes—but it did cement her management style. She breaks down seemingly insurmountable challenges into more manageable pieces.

Whether it’s a catastrophic health diagnosis or her employer’s existential crisis over the future of social media, her strategy seems to have worked so far. Read the full story about the woman behind Meta’s advertising machine here.

Emma [email protected]@_emmahinchliffe

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