NEW HAVEN, Conn. – It is one of the most iconic photos in the long history of Yale men's basketball. Ime Archibong '03 going in for a dunk in the final seconds as students rush the floor behind him to celebrate a 2002 weekend sweep of long-time Ivy League powers Penn and Princeton. It was the start of a memorable run for the Bulldogs that culminated with an Ivy championship, Yale's first since 1963, and the first postseason victory in school history – over Rutgers in the NIT.
 
"That poster is the one Yale thing I still have in my house," says Archibong, who was the captain of head coach James Jones' 2001-02 team.
 
It's a memory Archibong cherishes. Far more important to him, though, are the lessons learned during his time at Yale - both on and off the court. It is those experiences that he uses in his present life as a leader at Facebook, one of the most powerful and influential companies in the world. Archibong is the Head of New Product Experimentation and oversees and mentors thousands of employees.
 
And he isn't shy about sharing what he learned at Yale. Ask anyone who has been at Facebook for any length of time, and they will have heard a story or two or three about his days as a Bulldog. The most common is what he calls getting in a foxhole.
 
"Every single year I was at Yale, Coach Jones would pass out this questionnaire, and there was always the same question at the very end - If you were stuck in a foxhole and you had to pick one teammate who would you be in the foxhole with? The story I always tell at Facebook is it was always really obvious for me in retrospect understanding when we were going to have a good season and when we weren't," Archibong said. "If one person's name consistently showed up on that last line, then heck there is only one person that people think is tough and is going to work hard. That's not going to get it done. When the results came back, and we had a blend of people, that's when I knew we had the tools, the grit and know-how to really tackle the season. I use that story to remind people that in these toughest times in our industry, you have to ask yourself two things - are you surrounded by people that you would write their name down on that question, and do you think your name would show up, and if not, why not?"
 
Archibong, who graduated Yale with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering, joined Facebook nearly 11 years ago. His first role was building the partnership side of the company. For the last two years, he's headed up the New Product Experimentation department. During his tenure, the company has undergone explosive growth, going from 1,000 employees to nearly 60,000.
 
Facebook's mission has always been to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. It's an agenda Archibong deeply believes, going back to his days at Yale.
 
"In all the different moments in my life when I've been the most happy, including on the basketball court, it wasn't just about the thing I was doing, it was about the people I was playing with and playing for," he said. "I remember looking up in the stands and seeing the band go crazy, seeing my friends go crazy, seeing my family go crazy, seeing the Yale community go crazy. Once I realized that the thing that has been the most consistent across my life, the opportunity to serve people and make people happy, it became really clear that I wanted to work in a space where I got the opportunity to do that every single day."
 
Archibong's leadership skills were evident during his time at Yale. In his senior year, there was a tragic traffic accident that claimed the lives of four Yale students, including three student athletes. One of the first events on campus following the accident was a basketball game. It was an opportunity for the Yale community to come together. At the end of the season, Archibong received a letter from then President Richard Levin, who he had never formally met.
 
"Thank you for how you led the team this year," the note said. "You really helped this community heel."
 
"That always stuck with me," Archibong said.
 
There have been challenges at Facebook as well, particularly in recent times. The 2016 and 2020 elections, the Covid-19 pandemic and social justice have all put Facebook in the spotlight.
 
Assuring there was no foreign intervention in the recent election was a top priority.
 
"We really wanted to make sure that we were thinking about all the adversarial ways that other countries might try to disrupt the U.S. election," he said. "I'm proud of the way the team showed up. We invested billions of dollars to ensure that there was no tampering with the election."
 
Early in the pandemic, Archibong and his team organized a virtual hackathon where engineers could create tech-enabled solutions to address current issues. It led to thousands of projects that benefited the world and was just one of the many ways Facebook helped people cope.
 
"People took to our tools," Archibong said. "It demonstrated the power of what we've been building and showed up for the world in a way I'm excited about and proud of."
 
The tragic death of George Floyd in May and the events that followed also became an important topic.
 
"It's exhausting to see these images and hear these stories over, and over, and over and over again," Archibong said. "We had to ask ourselves what role as a company can we play in exposing people to that."
 
During his tenure at Facebook, Archibong has grown close to Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of the company.
 
"That's one of the beauties of being at a place so long, you end up not just being colleagues but friends," Archibong said.
 
The two often run together.
 
"Mark and I would go on a lot of business trips and after a while, we realized to stay in shape and to fight jetlag, we should go running," said Archibong, who says he has run the equivalent of 135 marathons over the last 10 years. "We joked we could make a calendar of all the different places that we ran together."
 
Despite a hectic work schedule, Archibong is still an avid follower and supporter of the Yale men's basketball program. He attended the 2016 NCAA Tournament victory over Baylor, proudly wearing his No. 00 jersey, and has made time to assist players with career advice and internships.
 
Archibong, who recently spoke to the team on a Zoom call, knows first-hand how important that can be. In his senior year, he met former Bulldog John Rice '88 when the team was in Northern California to play Stanford. It turned out the two shared the same society at Yale.
 
Remembers Archibong, "He reached out to me and he says `you don't know me, I don't know you, but we were in the same society. I just started this company called Management Leadership For Tomorrow. We're about two years into our journey. If you ever think about going to business school or getting into the working world instead of playing, shoot me an email.'"
 
After unsuccessfully trying to land a spot playing professionally overseas, Archibong reached out to Rice, who put him in touch with another former Bulldog - Tim McChristian '77. McChristian helped Archibong land his first job as a software engineer at IBM.
 
Archibong remained at IBM for a little over three years before realizing it was time for a change.
 
"I was sitting at a lunch table with life-long IBMers," he said. "We were working on storage systems and all they wanted to do was talk about storage systems. And I was like can we talk about anything but storage right now. I was really frustrated. And I said to myself after a little time to reflect, `I'm sitting here frustrated but what they have is what I really want, which is working on something or towards a purpose that I care so much about.' They have found the things that lights them up and then I went on my quest to figure out what that was for me."
 
So, he again reached out to Rice, who suggested he apply to Stanford Business School. Shortly after graduating in 2008, Archibong was hired at Facebook where he has found his true calling.
 
"I've found an industry that I will always remain interested in and be curious about," he said. "I've found an organization that has a mission that is aligned with who I am at my core. And I've found friends here. It's an opportunity to do really hard, meaningful work with people that I love."