Sheryl Sandberg to leave Meta Council after 12 years | Technology

Sheryl Sandberg takes another step aside. Known for years as Facebook’s number two, the manager passed the baton in 2022 at the head of operations to the Spaniard Javier Oliván. This Wednesday, Sandberg, 54, distanced herself even further from the company by announcing that she will not seek re-election to her position on the board of directors in May. “Looking forward, I will serve as a corporate advisor and will always be there to help the Meta teams,” the executive wrote on the social network that made the Menlo Park organization famous.

Sandberg ends 12 years as CEO of the company. Her departure leaves that group without Facebook’s best-known executive, a woman who championed perhaps Silicon Valley’s most notorious battle to end a male-dominated corporate culture. A Harvard graduate and notable student of Larry Summers, Sandberg combined her crusade with serving as the tech giant’s chief operating officer, a position she held from 2008 until fall 2022. Her work there was pivotal so that Facebook, today Meta, is able to monetize the time that users spend on their products, applications like Instagram and WhatsApp. The legacy of her feminist fight can be seen in the formation of the council she left, where today there remain three women among its nine members (Peggy Alford, Nancy Kiellefer and Tracey Travis).

In her farewell, Sandberg thanked Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, whom she considers a “once-in-a-generation visionary leader.” This showcased his “dedication” and guidance. The messages are accompanied by photographs depicting the years the executives shared together in Silicon Valley, where they saw their fortunes grow. Agree with Fortunethat of Sandberg, who has worked at Google, McKinsey and the Treasury Department, is around $1.9 billion, while that of Zuckerberg is around $133 billion.

After leaving the position of director of operations, Sandberg focused on philanthropic activities, which she has carried out since leaning, which aims to increase the responsibilities and number of women in companies. The group offers a program that begins developing leadership in adolescents between the ages of 11 and 15. The organization takes its name from the bestselling book that Sandberg published in 2013 and which reached the Spanish-speaking world with the title Let’s go. In fall 2022, the executive branch donated $3 million to a civil rights organization to fund abortion rights litigation. This donation is one of the largest received by the activist association ACLU.

Among the anecdotes Sandberg recounts in her book is that of the nausea she suffered during her first pregnancy. He then gained 32 kilos and had difficulty moving easily around the offices where he worked then, the Google of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. He explained to them that the company needed special spaces where pregnant women could park. During her career, the leader decided to speak openly about the difficult path that many face in the corporate pyramid. Sandberg, a mother of five children and two marriages (she was widowed in 2015 after her first marriage), is starting a new story outside of Facebook.

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