Facebook Gets a Time Inc. Veteran to Help Wrangle Famous People

John Cantarella used to run high-profile Web sites for Time Inc. Now he has a new job: Getting high-profile people to post things on Facebook.

Cantarella, the former head of digital for Time Inc.’s news and sports group, is going to be Facebook’s “Head of Global Influencer Partnerships,” a newly created position. The big idea: Convince famous people — say, Bill Clinton or Richard Branson — to use Facebook more, and do the same for the people who run nonprofits and other “causes.”

It’s part of Facebook’s bigger push to encourage more “public content” on the site — the kind of stuff that appears on Twitter all the time.

Cantarella is one of several executives tasked with getting more high-profile posts on the site: Sibyl Goldman, who used to work for Ryan Seacrest, recently joined to head up entertainment deals in Hollywood; Andy Mitchell works with news media companies out of New York. More are on the way, according to people familiar with Facebook’s plans.

Cantarella, who will move from New York to California for the job, used to head up Time Inc. sites including Time.com, SI.com and Fortune.com. He was one of a trio of Time Inc. digital executives that left the company earlier this year as it was re-orging in advance of its spinout from Time Warner.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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