Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook's pride, world's envy!

She is a role model for women across the world. A class topper, a passionate human being, an intelligent leader, a smart business executive, brilliant orator, and of course a doting mother - meet Sheryl Sandberg, who juggles several roles with ease.

As chief operating officer (COO) of the world's most favourite social networking site, Facebook, Sheryl is undisputedly one of the most powerful people in business.

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Sheryl holds one of the most envious posts in the corporate world. She urges more women to take up challenges and excel in whatever they do.

"Ask a woman why she did well on something, and she'll say, 'I got lucky. All of these great people helped me. I worked really hard,"  says Sheryl Sandberg.

"Ask a man and he'll say or think, 'What a dumb question. I'm awesome.' So women need to take a page from men and own their own success," says Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook.

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Last year, Sandberg was named Forbes magazine's fifth most powerful woman in the world and Fortune named her among the 12 most powerful women in business.

Sheryl was named as one of Time magazine's top 25 most influential people on the web in 2008.
"Believing in yourself is the first necessary step to coming even close to achieving your potential," Sandberg says.

The only woman co-chair at the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Sheryl laments the absence of women in the boardrooms.

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Women should come up on par with men to shoulder bigger responsibilities in the business sector, she says.

"Men run the world. Of 190 heads of state, nine are women. Of all the parliaments around the world, 13 per cent of those seats are held by women. Corporate America top jobs, 15 per cent are women; numbers which have not moved at all in the past nine years," Sheryl pointed out during a commencement address in May last year at Barnard College in New York City.

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For a woman who has a fine balance between personal and professional life, success makes much sense.
She has two young children - a seven-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter.

"I want more choices for both of them. I want my son to have the choice to be a full partner not just at work, but at home; and I want my daughter to have a choice to do either." she says.

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She firmly believes that leadership sharing starts at home, "A world where men ran half our homes and women ran half our institutions would be just a much better world," Sandberg said during the commencement address in May, 2011 at Barnard College in New York City.

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From being a Facebook fan, today she is the driving force behind the company.

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, met Sandberg at a Christmas party in 2007. At that time, she was considering becoming a senior executive for the Washington Post Company.

However, Zuckerberg thought Sandberg would be "a perfect fit" in his company. Finally in 2008, Facebook took Sheryl Sandberg away from Google.

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Zuckerberg believes that Sheryl is a great manager who will help scale Facebook's operations globally.

"She has relevant experience and a track record of scaling business operations and building new kinds of advertising networks. Sheryl understands Facebook's goal of connecting everyone in the world and is passionate about building a business that will enable us to realize this mission," Zuckerberg said after hiring her.

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Sandberg played a key role in helping Facebook maintain a balance between privacy and monetising its data.
As a result, the company turned profitable by 2010. Today, Facebook has more than 800 million members.

According to Sandberg, social technologies are transforming communities, companies and countries.

"There is a huge shift in the way technology is powering us as human beings. Today on the Internet, people can know who you are if you want them to. This has impacted the way we share and connect as people and communities," she explains.

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After steering Google to great heights, at Facebook, she manages a whole spectrum of the company's complex business.
She is in charge of the business operations including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy, privacy, and communications.

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Prior to her stint in Google, she served as an economist for the World Bank and Chief of Staff at the US Treasury Department.

Sheryl serves on the boards of The Walt Disney Company, Starbucks, Women for Women International, the Center for Global Development and V-Day.

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Sandberg has an excellent academic record as well. She graduated in Economics in 1991 from Harvard and was awarded the John H. Williams Prize for being the topper.

While at Harvard, Sandberg met then professor Larry Summers who became her mentor and thesis adviser.
Summers recruited her to be his research assistant at the World Bank, where she worked on health projects in India dealing with leprosy, AIDS, and blindness.

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Sandberg earned her MBA with highest distinction from Harvard Business School in 1995. After business school, she worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company.

From 1996 to 2001, Sandberg served as Chief of Staff to then United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers under President Bill Clinton where she helped lead the Treasury's work on forgiving debt in the developing world during the Asian financial crisis.

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For 26-year old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg is a huge support as she brings in immense knowledge, financial and advertising expertise and communication skills.

Sandberg will also play a key role in making Facebook's forthcoming IPO a big success.

Google's loss has certainly been Facebook's biggest gain.