- Shadi Nayyer joined Meta in a new role focused on metaverse creator and developer relationships.
- Nayyer's role overseeing ecosystem growth rolls up into the Reality Labs content organization.
- Before joining Meta, Nayyer led global creator programs at TikTok.
Meta has tapped the former TikTok exec Shadi Nayyer to oversee a new team designed to build relationships with creators and developers in its metaverse division, Reality Labs.
Nayyer's new role leading ecosystem growth falls under the content organization within Reality Labs. She told Business Insider she'd initially focus on creators who develop inside its virtual-reality game Horizon Worlds and other metaverse apps.
She plans to hire a team of developer advocates, community leaders, and program managers to host hackathons, attend third-party events, and run competitions and other community programs. Nayyer said that over time the work would expand into other parts of the division, such as augmented reality.
"A lot of what my focus is going to be on is essentially growing our developer creator ecosystem," she said. "Bringing on creators, builders, developers onto the Meta platform. Helping them learn about our products, about our tools, and just getting them into our various creator programs."
Nayyer was previously TikTok's head of creator programs.
A recent internal memo from Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, viewed by BI indicates that Meta sees 2025 as a critical year for its metaverse work. Bosworth called out Horizon Worlds as an area of focus, saying that platform would need to "break out" for the company's long-term plans to come to fruition.
Horizon Worlds offers a mix of games, live events, and social features for Meta's Quest VR headsets as well as mobile and desktop devices. In September, Aigerim Shorman, a vice president of product, said that usage of the Horizon platform was up "5x compared to last year" and that Horizon Worlds was a top-five app on the Quest 3 as measured by weekly users.
The company told investors during last week's fourth-quarter earnings that its Reality Labs unit hit $1.08 billion in revenue in the period. It expects operating losses in the division to increase in 2025, as they did in 2024.
Nayyer, who joined Meta last month, said her team would focus on driving up engagement from the metaverse developer community.
At TikTok, Nayyer worked on creator product marketing, partnerships, and community development, as well as its diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. Before that, Nayyer worked on community marketing at Twitch.
Meta and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.