Sheryl Sandberg: Develop Your Voice, Not Your Brand

Insights by Stanford Business, July 18, 2017

by Theodore Kinni


Today Sheryl Sandberg is known as a leading Silicon Valley executive and a champion of working women. But when she arrived in California in 2001, after a five-year stint at the U.S. Treasury, she wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms.

“All the exciting stuff was happening out here, so I wanted to work in Silicon Valley,” recalls Sandberg. “Lots of people said ‘I would never hire anyone like you’ to my face. The first tech bubble had just burst. It was actually hard to get a job.”

But Sandberg did get a job — and an impressive one. She served as Google’s vice president of global online sales and operations until 2008, when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg convinced her to join the social networking site as its COO.

In 2013, Sandberg became a best-selling author with the publication of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Since then, its readers have founded 33,000 Lean In peer support circles in 150 countries.

Sandberg’s life seemed charmed until May 2015, when her husband and the father of her two children, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly. “When Dave died, I didn’t think I was capable of anything. I could barely go to work and not cry. I was parenting two grieving children,” she says.

Sandberg channeled her own grief into a second book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. Co-authored with Wharton School professor Adam Grant, it, too, has found a global readership and, with the support of the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation, has already attracted a community of 350,000 people.

On May 25, Sandberg described her journey and the lessons she has learned along the way to Stanford Graduate School of Business students at the final View From The Top event of the 2016-17 academic year. Read the rest here.