A social networking system allows entities to delegate actions performed on behalf of the entity to social networking system users by assigning one or more roles to social networking system users. Roles may be assigned based on information associated with the entity by the social networking system. Different roles are associated with sets of permissions specifying actions a user associated with a role is authorized to perform on behalf of the entity via the social networking system. Certain permissions of a role associated with the user may be associated with additional users by the user. A persona including a subset of information associated with a user by the social networking system may be created for a user assigned a role, allowing the user to limit information accessible to additional users connected to the persona.