Sheryl Sandberg is the COO of Facebook. She has made big headlines this week with the IPO of Facebook, making her  the “1.6 billion dollar woman.” I say good for her and good for Facebook in general. I’m sure everyone has different opinions but you cannot deny the powerful influence Facebook has on so many people in the USA and in the world. It’s a big deal.

Not sure if this is an embarrassing confession, but I hadn’t heard of Sandberg until this week. She is a big supporter of getting more women to pursue those top management positions in companies. Her talks are well known and they have even been included in the syllabi of some business classes at Harvard and Stanford. I just watched this talk, from December 2010, for the first time this morning. I loved it and thought it was worth sharing for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.

The video speaks for itself. The only thing I would mention is Sandberg discusses how her generation will never have a 50/50 balance of women to men in leadership positions. Sandberg is just a few years younger than my parents. I would love to see my generation be the one that creates that balance. We’ll see!