Facebook lobbyist chief promoted to global policy head

Facebook’s head of Washington policy is getting bumped up to vice president of global policy.

In the new position, Joel Kaplan will be tasked with managing the social media giant’s policy efforts with government and major organizations around the globe, Facebook confirmed on Monday. 

{mosads}Kaplan is taking the place of Marne Levine, Facebook’s former global policy head, who is departing to become the first ever chief operating officer for Instagram, the picture-sharing service owned by Facebook. In the new position, she will be managing every aspect of the business side of the company, which has 200 million users, including marketing and business operations.

Kaplan will stay in Washington for his new post. Levine is heading to California to start at Instagram.

Both Kaplan and Levine are White House veterans, though they come from different administrations. 

Kaplan worked as deputy chief of staff for policy and the deputy director of the White House’s budget office under former President George W. Bush. Levine was the chief of staff for President Obama’s National Economic Council until 2010.

A replacement for Kaplan at Facebook has not yet been named. 

The personnel shake-up was announced the same day that Facebook finalized its nearly $22 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, a messaging application.  

The deal won approval from European antitrust regulators on Friday and a filing was made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, bringing the purchase to a close. 

The news was first reported by The Washington Post.