Post #636

(Part 1)

TED Talk Video: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions — and offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite. As the COO at the helm of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg juggles the tasks of monetizing the world’s largest social networking site while keeping its users happy and engaged.

Long before Sheryl Sandberg left Google to join Facebook as its Chief Operating Officer in 2008, she was a fan. Today she manages Facebook’s sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy and communications. It’s a massive job, but one well suited to Sandberg, who not only built and managed Google’s successful online sales and operations program but also served as an economist for the World Bank and Chief of Staff at the US Treasury Department. Sandberg’s experience navigating the the complex and socially sensitive world of international economics has proven useful as she and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg work to strike a balance between helping Facebook users control privacy while finding ways to monetize its most valuable asset: data.

At TEDWomen in 2010 Sandberg made the bold decision to talk about the experience of being one of very few women at the C-level of business. She noted that many women, in anticpating having a family, “lean back” from leading at work. After her TED Talk took off, Sandberg wrote the book Lean In, which has spent nearly a year on the New York Times Bestseller list. Sandberg plans to release a version of the book for graduates.

“Whether you call it “scaling the company” or “managing hypergrowth,” Sandberg is one of the few executives on earth with a demonstrated knack for it. It’s clear why Zuckerberg, in particular, needed her.” Vogue, May 2010

[ted id=1040]
Video Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

Continued next week (Part 2) – Friday Video: TED Talk – Sheryl Sandberg admits she was terrified to step onto the TED stage in 2010 — because she was going to talk, for the first time, about the lonely experience of being a woman in the top tiers of business. Millions of views (and a best-selling book) later, the Facebook COO talks with the woman who pushed her to give that first talk, Pat Mitchell.