Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Kara Sandberg is an American technology executive, activist, and author. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and founder of Leanin.org. In June 2012, she was elected to the board of directors by the existing board members, becoming the first woman to serve on Facebook's board. Before she joined Facebook as its COO, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google and was involved in launching Google's philanthropic arm Google.org. Before Google, Sandberg served...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusiness Executive
Date of Birth28 April 1969
CountryUnited States of America
Facebook is great for women and men. We are enormously flexible. We care a lot about great opportunities for women, we push ourselves to make things as flexible as possible.
It is illegal to discriminate on the basis of pregnancy or gender. It is not illegal to talk about it.
When the man is traveling with a man, he says, "Let's stay up late and work on this and get this to be better." When the man's traveling with the woman, for the sake of appearances he doesn't do the work with her. That's a lost opportunity for her to be a success.
In our performance reviews with women, we need to be saying, "Are you reaching enough? Are you applying for jobs when you meet some of the criteria like men, or are you waiting to meet all the criteria like women do?" There's so much we can do to encourage women to take on more and believe in themselves.
Sixty-four percent of managers in the U.S. are afraid to be alone in a room with a woman. Mentoring is all about being alone in a room with someone. Let's start talking about this honestly. The lack of equal access is the silent killer for women and no one wants to talk about it.
People assume Wall Street is a certain culture and tech is a certain culture. But if you look at the (gender) numbers at the top of (those) industries, they don't vary very much. I think in finance, women hold 19 percent of the top jobs, and women are 21 percent of the leaders in nonprofits.
I'm not writing about things other women do. I'm writing for other women to have more self-confidence because I need it myself! And if more women were in power, I would feel more comfortable.
Men feel like they can be a professional and a father. For women it's "or." That's offensive to me. The concept that it's not possible is crazy.
We need to start talking about child-rearing in the workplace.
We are looking for innovative ways to work with different people globally to help solve these problems, ... We are looking for opportunities that are sustainable and that we think will make a difference for organizations and for people across the world.
I spent most of my career in business not saying the word 'woman.' Because if you say the word 'woman' in a business context, and often in a political context, the person on the other side of the table thinks you're about to sue them or ask for special treatment, right?
Success, for me, is that if my son chooses to be a stay-at-home parent, he is cheered on for that decision. And if my daughter chooses to work outside the home and is successful, she's cheered on and supported.
I think it is too hard for men to talk about gender. We have to let men talk about this... because we need men to talk about this if it is ever going to change.
I'd like to see where boys and girls end up if they get equal encouragement - I think we might have some differences in how leadership is done.