Sheryl Sandberg takes a new step aside. Known for years as Facebook's number two, the executive passed the baton in 2022 as head of operations to the Spaniard Javier Oliván. This Wednesday, Sandberg, 54, takes even further distance from the company by announcing that she will not seek re-election to her position on the Board of Directors in May. “Looking to the future, I will serve as a company advisor and I will always be here to help the Meta teams,” the executive wrote on the social network that made the Menlo Park organization famous.
Sandberg puts an end to 12 years within the company's management body. Her departure leaves this group without Facebook's best-known executive, a woman who championed perhaps the most notorious battle within Silicon Valley to end a business culture dominated by men. A Harvard graduate and notable student of Larry Summers, Sandberg combined her crusade with the position of chief operating officer of the technology giant, a position she held from 2008 until the fall of 2022. Her work there was key to Facebook, now Meta, being able to monetize the time users spent on their products, applications like Instagram and WhatsApp. The legacy of her feminist battle can be seen in the formation of the council that she leaves, where today three women remain among its nine members (Peggy Alford, Nancy Kiellefer and Tracey Travis).
In her farewell, Sandberg thanked Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, whom she considered a “once-in-a-generation visionary leader.” This has highlighted his “dedication” and guidance. The messages have been accompanied by photographs that illustrate the years that the executives have shared together in Silicon Valley, where they have seen their fortunes grow. In accordance with Fortunethat of Sandberg, who worked at Google, McKinsey and the Treasury Department, amounts to about 1.9 billion dollars, while that of Zuckerberg is around 133 billion dollars.
After leaving the position of chief operating officer, Sandberg focused on philanthropic activities, which she has carried out since Leanin, which seeks to increase the responsibilities and number of women in companies. The group has a program that begins to build leadership in adolescents between 11 and 15 years old. The organization takes its name from the best-selling book that Sandberg published in 2013 and which reached the Spanish-speaking world with the title Let's go ahead. In the fall of 2022, the executive donated $3 million to a civil rights organization to fund litigation for abortion rights. The donation was one of the largest received by the activist association, the ACLU.
Among the anecdotes that Sandberg tells in her book is that of the nausea she suffered during her first pregnancy. He then gained 32 kilos and found it difficult to move easily in the offices where he then worked, the Google of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. She told them that the company needed special spaces where pregnant women could park. In her career, the executive decided to speak openly about the uphill road that many faced in the corporate pyramid. Sandberg, a mother of five and with two marriages in tow (she was widowed in 2015 from her first marriage), begins a new story away from Facebook.
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