Facebook's Chief Marketing Officer Gary Briggs is leaving the social media giant to retire... or not.

In a Facebook post, Briggs explained...

Status update

I guess it’s fitting that this is a status update. After weighing the timing, and discussing it with Chris and Sheryl over the past year, I‘m excited to have made the decision to retire. And I know I’m fortunate; very fortunate.

I am so grateful for my 4 1/2 years as CMO at Facebook and will work now on hiring my successor. It’s an amazing job at an amazing time with the best marketing team. While I’m getting ready for my next chapter, I’m not done yet. I’ll be here at Facebook fully committed until we hire someone great and they ramp up.

Since our boys went off to college two years ago, Catherine and I have been talking about how to take advantage of our new flexibility. I took that time to weigh what it would be like to continue to work full-time versus not. Over the past year, I’ve also pursued more personal interests and decided that now is the right time.

I’m going to pursue some advisory work for a few companies and hopefully join a few boards. I’ll explore teaching a bit. We’re going to travel some and start to split our time in and out of the Bay Area and Seattle.

And I plan to help the Democratic Party on some efforts leading up to the US midterms this year through to 2020.

Thank you to Chris, Sheryl and Mark for inviting me into Facebook and the best role of my career. I’m excited for what’s next.