Susan Li

Meta's finance chief

Susan Li is chief financial officer of Meta Platforms. Meta's investor relations site lists her as CFO and says she leads the company's finance and facilities teams. Before taking the top finance job she was vice president of finance, overseeing finance and business planning and treasury.^[1]

Early life and education

Li was born in 1986 in Chengdu, China, moved to the United States as a toddler and grew up mainly in Lake Oswego, Oregon, near Portland. According to her Wikipedia entry, she entered Stanford University at 15 and earned degrees in economics and in mathematical and computational sciences. Fortune's profile confirms the Stanford degree and a short stretch at Morgan Stanley before she joined Facebook.^[2][3]

Fourteen years inside the finance organization

Li joined Facebook in 2008, in its early days, after working as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley. Wikipedia says she helped lead work on the company's initial public offering, and dates her promotion to vice president of finance to 2016. It names two former Meta CFOs, David Ebersman and David Wehner, as mentors during that period.^[1][2]

She was selected as CFO in November 2022. Fortune says she took the role at 36 after 14 years of rising through the finance organization.^[2][3]

AI-era capital spending

Fortune, which placed her No. 42 on its 2026 Most Powerful Women list, reports that Meta passed $200 billion in annual revenue for the first time in 2025, that she helped oversee nearly $70 billion in capital spending tied to its AI build-out, and that she opened the door to outside financing and partnerships for data centers. Wikipedia notes that under her tenure Meta shifted spending from the metaverse toward AI and wearables.^[2][3]

On the April 2026 first-quarter call, covered by the Associated Press, Meta reported revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33 percent, and raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion, citing higher component prices and additional data center costs. Li also warned that legal and regulatory headwinds in the European Union and the United States could significantly affect results, and said further youth-related trials could end in a material loss.^[4]

The second quarter of 2026

Meta's second-quarter 2026 release, dated July 29, reported revenue of $60.80 billion, up 28 percent, and capital expenditures of $31.08 billion for the quarter, including finance lease principal payments. It narrowed full-year capex guidance to $130 billion to $145 billion and set total expenses at $165 billion to $169 billion, a range that includes $2.4 billion of second-quarter legal charges.^[5]

The release also reported headcount of 75,472 as of June 30, down about 1 percent from a year earlier, with roughly 8,000 employees affected by a May 2026 headcount reduction still to leave the count. Daily active people across Meta's apps averaged 3.60 billion in June. The company said it expects 2026 operating income to exceed 2025 operating income.^[5]

Boards and public profile

Since 2024 Li has served on the board of the Arc Institute, a biomedical research nonprofit. Wikipedia also records that in 2025 she clarified that Mark Zuckerberg's $600 billion U.S. investment pledge was the total envelope covering all U.S.-based activity, and ranks her No. 41 on both Forbes' and Fortune's 2025 lists of the most powerful women.^[2]

Why she matters

Li's work sits at the center of the largest question in big-tech finance: how much to spend on AI infrastructure, how to pay for it and how to explain it to investors. She is a rare insider-turned-CFO, having spent her whole Meta career in finance, and her guidance on capex and expenses is now one of the numbers the market watches each quarter. How she balances record revenue, a very large build-out, workforce reductions and legal exposure will shape both Meta's margins and the standard other technology CFOs are held to.^[1][3][4][5]

On The Executive List

Susan Li is ranked No. 31 on The Executive List (October 2026) in the Chief Financial Officers discipline. The ranking reflects The Executive Review's own editorial Trending Score; it is not an outside award, and placement on the list is never sold. View the October 2026 edition.