The Face behind Google and Facebook’s Success

It is known that while women tend to thrive and shine in artistic domains, it is men who are most often the greatest business and tech tycoons. But some phenomenal women have been able to break the gender hierarchies and triumph in largely male-dominated fields, and one of these exceptions is technology executive Sheryl Sandberg.

_{^{Mrs. Sandberg during  the Senate Intelligence Committee 2018 - AP photo}}

As a self-made billionaire, Sandberg’s fame revolves around her position as Facebook’s first chief operating officer (COO), but little do people know that this is only one of her multifarious professional conquests. Her acute intelligence earned her a BA in economics from Harvard University where she won the John H. Williams Prize for the top graduating student in economics, so here is an example of an aspirational woman who excelled in a male-dominated major. She also earned her master’s degree in business administration from Harvard, and was given a fellowship for her excellent academic performance. Sandberg possessed all the necessary qualities the business world required, so she had all the cards in her favor.

As a fresh graduate, she worked for a short time as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company, and was later recruited by her Harvard professor, Lawrence Summers, to become his research assistant at the World Bank. Her resourceful nature accompanied by her brilliant ideas made her ideal for that position, where she began to oversee plans and projects to aid the underprivileged. For approximately one year, she persistently worked to develop feasible health projects in India that focused on leprosy and AIDS, and to find measures to forgive world debt in Asia. 

_{^{CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey (R) and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (L) are sworn in to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on September 5, 2018. AFP}}

Despite the hectic working hours, Sandberg felt satisfied for fulfilling her desire to work on benevolent and humanitarian causes.

When she joined Google in 2001 as general manager of the business unit, Sandberg became responsible for developing Adwords and Adsense, as she was in charge of the online sales of the company’s online advertising and publishing products. Her diligence earned her the position of Vice President of global online sales and operations, in which time she managed to grow the ad and sales unit from 4 to 4,000 people! Rumor has it that if it hadn’t been for her strategies, Google wouldn’t have become the giant it is today.

Following the insights of her keen executive mind, Sandberg joined forces with Facebook and created a lucrative advertising strategy for the company that paved the way for its massive profits. She became Facebook’s first COO in 2008, and in 2012 became Facebook’s first woman in the board of directors. This persistent woman has asserted both her name and talent in the technology and business male-dominated realm, and has ever since contributed to the company’s increase in revenues from $56 million to a staggering $40 billion last year.

_{^{Sandberg and her husband, Dave Goldberg, at their former home in Atherton, Cali.- Fortune}}

Her renown among the world’s major business and economic giants has given her just the right platform to encourage women in business. She urges working women, especially working mothers like herself, to not view obstacles as barriers to success but rather as professional challenges to be overcome. She insists that women should adopt a more aggressive work ethic, as they are still lagging in the number of business executives and CEOs. Her first book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,  Sandberg discusses business and leadership, focusing on women’s roles by advising them how to think and act so that equity in the workplace and society can finally emerge. Sandberg also proved herself a bestselling author, selling over a million copies in 7 months.

Her numerous skills and expertise have qualified her as one of the world’s most powerful women in business and one of the most impressive self-made billionaires. Her net worth of $1.6 billion has established her not only as a woman whose lead should be followed, but most importantly as a business tycoon whose diligence, assiduity, and creativity should be emulated.