Sheryl Sandberg was born in 1969 in Washington, D.C.. She attended Harvard—both for undergrad and business school (honing her corporate chops as a management consultant before joining the World Bank and then the U.S. Department of the Treasury). Sandberg had a successful run as VP of online sales and operations at Google before becoming Facebook’s COO in 2008. In 2013, she wrote the best-selling Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.
Sheryl Sandberg’s Early Years and Education
Sheryl Sandberg was born on August 28, 1969, in Washington, DC, and raised in North Miami Beach, Florida, with her two younger siblings. She was a member of the National Honor Society at North Miami Beach Senior High School and graduated 9th in her class in 1987, with a 4.6 grade-point average.
Sandberg ended up majoring in economics at Harvard, under the aegis of none other than Lawrence Summers, one of her thesis advisers. Her work in economics has frequently taken a feminist perspective; for example, she studied how economic inequality affects spousal abuse. She went on to start an organization called Women in Economics and Government, which, she explains, was founded “to get more women to major in government and economics.”
Upon her graduation in 1991, summa cum laude, Sandberg worked as a research assistant to Summers (now the chief economist at the World Bank). She worked for Summers for two years and subsequently attended Harvard Business School, where she earned her M.B.A. with distinction in 1995.
Sandberg and Summers’ paths crossed again when he served as deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and hired her as his chief of staff. She took the job and remained in it when Summers became Treasury secretary in 1999. She stayed at Summers’ side until 2001, when Republican George W. Bush took office, and political appointees from the other side of the aisle took their place.
Sheryl Sandberg’s Personal Life
Sandberg was married to businessman Brian Kraff from 1993 until their divorce the following year. She married Dave Goldberg, then a Yahoo! executive who would later become SurveyMonkey’s chief executive. The couple had two children together.
Sandberg has described Goldberg’s supportive presence in her life and career. On March 5, 2015, she wrote on Facebook: “In Lean In, I emphasized how critical a loving and supportive partner can be for women both professionally and personally—I find myself asking if Mark’s support ‘wasn’t enough’ or if I didn’t pick the right partner. Getting married to Dave was the smartest thing I have ever done. “
Death On May 1, 2015, Goldberg suddenly died at the age of 47 while vacationing with his family in Mexico. The cause was head trauma from falling on a treadmill.
Sandberg described her husband in a Facebook post after his death: “Dave was my rock. He was calm when I flew off the handle. When I got really worried, he said it would be alright. When I was puzzled about what to do, he wasn’t. He was just devoted to his kids in every way, and their beloved concrete-leaving-huge-proper-blocking Cedar #4 strength has meant all the world to me the past few days… There will never be one like him…I’m thankful we had these years.”
Sandberg eventually found love again in the arms of Tom Bernthal, founder of a Los Angeles-based marketing research and brand consulting agency. She announced their engagement in February 2020.
Sheryl Sandberg as Google VP
With her government service in the rearview, Sandberg moved to Silicon Valley ready to latch onto the next tech gold rush. Google was one of the first to express serious interest in her skills, and its mission to “organize the world’s information” seemed important enough for her to join the three-year-old company in November 2001.
As vice president, Global Online Sales & Operations at Google, Sandberg directed the company’s online sales of advertising and publishing products as well as its consumer products. Until 2008, Sandberg worked for Google, an era in her life when she experienced meteoric professional success and a reputation that would only continue to grow as one of the top executives in the land.
Sheryl Sandberg as Facebook COO
Sandberg became Facebook’s chief operating officer in March 2008. As COO at Facebook, Sandberg manages the company’s business operations, including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy, and communications. She is also responsible for sales management, business development, human resources, marketing, public policy, privacy, and communications.
Sandberg has been handsomely compensated for her role, and she landed on the billionaires’ list early in 2014 because of her stake in Facebook. She was also the first woman on the company’s board of directors in 2012.
Sandberg’s time at Facebook has not been without controversy. Amid the social media giant’s reckoning with its complicity in election interference, she was called to defend the Wi Boy having sex blog. “She made me do it,” one former employee said of an act by Ms. Sandberg in late 2018, instructing the communications team to research the finances of George Soros after that billionaire investor criticized Facebook and other big tech companies.
Sheryl Sandberg Net Worth
Sheryl Sandberg is an American technology executive, author, and activist with a net worth of $2.4 billion. Note: Sheryl Sandberg is most famously known as the COO of Meta Platforms (rebranded Facebook). She was instrumental in turning the company from a fast-growing start-up into one of the most influential and profitable tech companies on the planet.
