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Sheryl Sandberg new billionaire as Facebook shares hit new high Sheryl Sandberg is a new billionaire as Facebook shares hit new high
(about 3 hours later)
Sheryl Sandberg's fortune has officially surpassed $1 billion after Facebook shares climbed to a new record high, making her one of the youngest billionaires in the United States. The ranks of the world’s most exclusive club were swollen by one new member yesterday as Facebook’s second in command Sheryl Sandberg was hailed as a paper billionaire.
The 44-year old owns approximately 12 million shares in the world's most popular social network, which closed at a fresh high of 58.51 in New York trading on Tuesday. With 12.3m personal shares in the social networking
Facebook's chief operating officer has snapped up more than $300 million selling shares since the company went public in May 2012 trading at $38 per share, and owns approximately 4.7 million stock options. phenomenon which she helped propel to its first profits after being lured from
Her stake in the company is valued at $750 million. rival Google by founder Mark Zuckerberg six years ago, the 44-year-old mother
Sandberg, who also sits on the board of Starbucks and Disney, is one of the youngest female billionaires in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. of two will be updating her financial status courtesy of the tripling in the
She recently published her first book 'Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead' encouraging women to pursue their ambitions in the corporate world. company’s stock market value, according to an estimate by the Bloomberg
David Kirkpatrick, author of 'The Facebook Effect' told Bloomberg TV: "Did she do a billion dollars-worth of work- I don't know. She had the good fortune to land in the right place where her talents could really be applauded." Billionaire Index.
Last month, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sold $2.3bn worth of shares in the social network to pay a tax bill and donated $1 billion worth of stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. After initially slumping in the wake of its public offering,
Facebook shares closed this week at a record $58.51 (£35.33). Ms Sandberg,
already arguably the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley is now one of the
youngest female billionaires on the planet and will this week be mingling with
fellow denizens of the global super-elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland.
Facebook declined to comment on its chief operating officer’s
net worth which has been routinely estimated at around the billion dollar mark
for some time by media profilers extolling the achievements of her stellar
career. Facebook’s recent stock market
performance – fuelled by her success securing vast revenues from mobile
advertising - appears to confirm what many had long been seen as inevitable.
Ms Sandberg, who also sits on the boards of Starbucks and
Walt Disney, is reported to have already amassed a fortune in excess of $300m (£180m)
after selling Facebook shares following the 2012 public offering. Her residual
stake is now valued at $750m (£452m).
Last year her wealth was boosted by a $26.2m (£16m) remuneration
package, $25.6m of which was in stock awards - a slight decline on the $31m (£19m)
she received the previous year which have made her the highest paid executive
at Facebook for two years running.
According to Forbes, there were 1,426 billionaires in the
world in 2013 commanding between them an aggregate net worth of $5.6 trillion
(£3.4trillion).
Last year’s list included 210 individuals with the requisite
10 figure fortune. The roll call included just 138 women, the wealthiest of
whom was 90-year-old L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt who is reportedly
worth $30bn (£18bn) making her the ninth richest person.
Ms Sandberg’s boss Mr Zuckerberg, 29, recently sold more
than $2bn (£1.2bn) in stock and donated another $1bn to the Silicon Valley
Community Foundation which provides grants to combat inequalities in the San
Francisco Bay area.  
David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, which chronicles the history of the company,
said Ms Sandberg had been the right person in the right place at the right
time.
“She went to Google, moved on to go to Facebook, went to
write a book, and she’ll know when to run for political office, and probably
win that office,” he said.
Her bestselling Lean
In, published last year, was as a manifesto to help women crack glass
ceilings in traditionally male-dominated domains of big business and high power
by the simple power of self-assertion. It argues: “A truly equal world would be
one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.”
Born into a highly educated Jewish family she moved
seamlessly in the 1990s from Harvard to management consultancy McKinsey, then
the World Bank and finally the US Treasury where she was chief of staff for her
mentor Lawrence Summers during the Clinton administration.
She quit Washington following the Republican victory in 2000
moving to California to pursue a career in the burgeoning tech sector. She
remains a supporter of President Obama and is married to entrepreneur Dave
Goldberg.