Mark Zuckerberg, along with the most important people in Silicon Valley, long knew that Sheryl Sandberg is a strong woman. Now it has become obvious to everyone, writes The Telegraph. She recently held a fundraiser for President Barack Obama, where she dined with the President and Lady Gaga. Late last month, she was among the presidents of the World Economic Forum in Davos, an annual event attended by leading businessmen, bankers and politicians in the world.
All this comes to show how important Sandberg is as Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, being the company’s image in the business world, as Mark Zuckerberg is for users. “She will play an important role in everything that will happen in the coming months”, says Matt Cohler, Facebook’s advisor and partner at Benchmark Capital, while the company has just announced plans to raise $5 billion by the biggest listing of a technology company. “He has deep connections in the political and business world”.
Sandberg is already the highest paid executive at Facebook. Her salary package of $30.87 million she received last year makes Zuckerberg’s salary of $1.5 million seem small. But Sandberg, who already owns 1.9 million shares of Facebook, could become one of the richest women in the world when she will receive another 38.1 million shares over the next five years. Sandberg, 42, is worth the money she receives from Facebook. She came to Facebook from Google in 2008 after he met Zuckerberg at a Christmas party and later the World Economic Forum in Davos. Since she took over as COO, she has turned Facebook from a social network experiment in a robust and focused on business company.
There is nothing wrong to say that Facebook would not have become what it is today without the help of Sandberg. Sandberg’s responsibilities include “increase revenue and create business relationships with developers”, being the only person, besides Zuckerberg, whose departure would have a massive impact on the company. Mother of two, Sandberg was noticeable by her energy and ability to make presentations without the need for notes and always saying the right thing.
She created her career with a foundation of studies in economics and an MBA from Harvard, where she attracted the attention of Professor Larry Summers, coordinator of her doctoral thesis which had the topic of economy role in the spousal abuse. In 1991, when Summers became chief economist at the World Bank, he hired Sandberg as researcher. Then, when he became U.S. Treasury secretary during Bill Clinton’s term, Summers hired her as Chief of Staff. She came to Google in 2000, when Democrats lost the election, six years she was vice president for sales and online operations.
The time at Google proved to be perfect in preparation for her role at Facebook. At Google, her role was to transform a search engine and potential young business into one that generates large amounts of money and has many development opportunities. At Google she learned a lot about privacy, which will be useful in the coming years at Facebook.
