Influential Women in the Workplace: Rhetors- Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg: Chief Operating Officer for Facebook

Sheryl Sandberg was born in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1969 to Adele and Joel Sandberg. Sheryl attended grade school in Florida; high school in Israel; then Harvard where she graduated at the top of her class with a B.A. in economics. Soon after she earned an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

Today Sheryl is well known for her position at Facebook. After meeting founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, she was asked to take the position of Chief Operating Officer for the company. Previous to this position she worked for Bill Clinton as Chief of Staff at the United States Department of the Treasury, and Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google.

Sheryl stands as a contemporary symbol for gender equality in the workplace as she holds an important position of authority at a large corporation. She has achieved success because she believed that she could do anything she set her mind to. Sheryl shows women today that they are as equally qualified as men through not only her actions, but also through discourse.

In a commencement speech given at Barnard College, an all women’s college, Sheryl addresses the gender problem when she says, “We have to admit something that’s sad but true, men run the world. Of one hundred and ninety heads of state, nine are women…corporate America top jobs fifteen percent are women...that means that when the big decisions are made…we do not have an equal voice at that table. …I truly believe that only when we get real equality in our governments, businesses, in our companies, universities, will we start to solve this generations central moral problem—which is gender equality.” As a rhetorician, Sheryl grants power to women when she acknowledges the fact that even though men currently make up the majority of the working class, women have the power to change that.

"Sheryl Sandberg." Bio & Lectures. WordPress. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.<http://www.virtualprofessors.com/instructor/sheryl-sandberg>.

Swisher, Kara. "Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg on Women in Workplace: “Don’t Leave Before You Leave”." Bio & Lectures. WordPress, 18 May 2011. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. <http://www.virtualprofessors.com/instructor/sheryl-sandberg>.


Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdvXCKFNqTY

By: Molly Flaig