Sheryl Sandberg To Focus On Her Foundation 'Lean In' After 14 Years At Facebook

American business executive billionaire and chief operating officer of Meta platforms, Sheryl Sandberg announced on June 1, 2022, that she is stepping down. Also, the founder of California-based nonprofit organisation Lean In Foundation, Sandberg added that she wanted to focus on her personal philanthropy and her foundation.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, hired her in 2008 because she had just about the most relevant industry experience for Facebook since they needed to scale their operations globally. Adding that she was proud to have gotten the opportunity, Sandberg said, “The opportunity to help another young global leader is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Sheryl Sandberg Steps Down From Meta

Over the past year, the social network has begun taking a new direction because of Zuckerberg. Moving toward a more immersive online world called metaverse, the company was renamed, Meta. Sandberg,52, reportedly lowered her profile with Zuckerberg taking over more responsibilities in reorganising the company. 

Expressing her belief in the company, Sandberg is said to remain on Meta’s board. She said, “Have we gotten everything right? Absolutely not. Have we learned and listened and grown and invested where we need to? This team has and will.”

Sandberg had informed Zuckerberg in a phone call over the weekend along with two of her employees that she wanted to leave Meta. Zuckerberg, who was in Hawaii was the first one to know about her decision of stepping down from the firm. 

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Sandberg was the second-highest-ranking official of Facebook and the first woman to serve on its board. Prior to joining Facebook, Sandberg was the vice president of global online sales at Google and was involved in its philanthropic arm, Google.org.

Sandberg is also known to have served as chief of staff for the United States Secretary of Treasury, Lawrence Summers. Summers was the head of the United States Department of the Treasury and the chief financial officer of the federal government of the US. 

Sheryl believes that the idea of the world being susceptible to change is unavoidable and one cannot help but reshape it. She seeks to empower the women around her by advising them to date men but never marry them unless they respect all women.

She writes in her book titled Lean In Women, “When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is to date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them.” Adding that every woman should marry someone who is their equal, she further adds, “The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.”

Born in Washington DC, Sandberg went to Harvard for her bachelor’s degree in 1969, pursuing economics. She worked at the World Bank and attended Harvard Business School. She then worked in the U.S. Department of the Treasury during Clinton’s administration. S

andberg moved to Silicon Valley and worked for Google after the democrats were swept by the Republicans out of office in November 2000. After seven years, moving to Facebook, where she has been COO since 2008, Sandberg is also the author of Lean In Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Her book has sold more than a million copies.