The executive team at Facebook continues to gain strength, depth and experience. Facebook has just landed former Vice President of Global Communications & Public Affairs from Google Elliot Schrage.

He will be serving at facebook in the capacity of VP of Communications & Corporate Policy. He brings a wealth of experience and depth to the facebook team.

He handled the hot potato of the Google/China issue with flying colors by most accounts during his tenure at Google. While at Google he was responsible for the company’s public-facing communications, including media relations, policy strategy and stakeholder outreach, as well as internal communications.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has welcomed Elliot to the team with a memo to facebook employees. The full letter can be seen at AllThingsDigital as reported by Kara Swisher.

Here is a quick excerpt:
“In this role, he will be responsible for developing the key messages we want people to understand about our products, our business and the growing global importance of social networking and what we do. The goal here is to help people understand how the internet can strengthen people’s relationships. Elliot will direct our efforts to work with users, media, governments and other entities around the world to ensure that Facebook’s policies are transparent, responsive, effective and are recognized as being those things.”

“This is a really important role for us and one that we’ve been trying to find the right person for a while. Elliot’s role will be critical to helping us scale based on our culture that values transparency, openness, and honest internal communications.”

Having someone with his level of experience will help facebook avoid some of the PR setbacks that have happened in the past. You can read between the lines here and see that facebook is really focused on international growth. Dealing with that international growth and messaging to multiple cultures will keep him hopping. Navigation of international waters with a social networking site that challenges many cultures concepts might prove challenging. Seems like they have hired the right person for the job.

I am surprised Google has not taken him off the executives page yet. You can read more about Elliot Schrage there.

Update: Techcrunch also has a post up.

Technorati Tags: facebook, google

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