Facebook’s disappointing IPO has gotten its fair share of news coverage recently, and the company has found itself garnering attention again more recently because of what the Atlantic Wire calls its “Complicated Lady Problems.” The person who has solved these problems and helped turn the company into a entity worth billions of dollars is Sheryl Sandberg, to whom we can turn to for inspiration on this Monday morning.
The author of a new book The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network, Katherine Losse joined the company in 2005 when there were 50 employees, only two of which were women. She details how the startup was like a glorified frat house for coders– full of inappropriate, uncomfortable décor and aggressive, condescending male coworkers. Losse said all that changed when Sandberg was hired on as the Chief Operating Officer in 2008. As a result, the young company became much more inviting for female workers, thankfully so.
Sandberg has had an extraordinary career thus far. After receiving her undergraduate degree and MBA from Harvard, she went on to work as chief of staff for the US Department of Treasury and then moved to Google, where she worked as Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations. Many pundits have said that Mark Zuckerberg’s smartest move as the CEO of Facebook was hiring Sandberg away from Google. Her job was to make Facebook profitable, and that’s precisely what she’s done in her four short years at the company.
Sandberg is certainly a role model for women everywhere in both her personal and professional life. In her excellent TED talk, she discusses the challenges women face in the world of business. She says “women are not making it to the top. 190 heads of state; 9 are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top– C-level jobs, board seats– tops out at 15, 16 percent.”
These numbers are unacceptable to Sandberg, and she encourages women to stay at the table and fight for what’s theirs. Her career in itself, including her ability to juggle being a mother and a wife, is something young women can look to for inspiration. The idea that women can ‘have it all’ has been much debated recently, and though it may be difficult, Sandberg shows us that it’s very much a possibility.
Check out Sandberg’s TED talk on why we have too few women leaders for some inspiration and guidance for your next presentation.
