Marissa Mayer vs Sheryl Sandberg – Difference and Comparison

Marissa Mayer und Sheryl Sandberg sind zwei der mächtigsten und bekanntesten Geschäftsfrauen in der digitalen Welt und üben Führungsrollen bei zwei der größten Namen im Technologiegeschäft aus. Marissa Mayer ist Präsidentin und CEO von Yahoo! Seit Juli 2012 ist Sheryl Sandberg seit 2008 COO von Facebook. Beide Frauen sind in den Nachrichten als Vorbild und Inspiration für die Führung zu sehen .

Vergleichstabelle

Career Overview

Before taking office to her present position as President and CEO of Yahoo!, Inc. in July `12, Marissa Mayer served 13 years at Google as an engineer, designer, product manager and executive. She joined Google in ’99 and held key roles in Google Search, Google Images, Google News, Google Maps, Google Books, Google Product Search, Google Toolbar, iGoogle and Gmail . She also oversaw the layout of Google’s popular, minimalistic search homepage.

Sheryl Sandberg joined Facebook as the Chief Operating Officer in 2008. Before joining Facebook, she served as VP of Global Online Sales & Operations at Google and was responsible for online sales of Google’s advertising & publishing products and also for sales operations of Google’s consumer products & Book Search. Before that, Sandberg was the Chief of Staff to then United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers under President Bill Clinton – Sandburg was helping lead the Treasury’s work on forgiving debt in the developing world during the Asian financial crisis in Clinton’s office at the time.

Career Path

Marissa Mayer:

• President & CEO, Yahoo!, Inc: Jul `12 – Present
• Vice President, Local, Maps and Location Services: Oct ’10 – Jul `12
• Vice President, Search Products and User Experience: Nov `05 – Oct `10
• Director, Consumer Web Services: Mar `03 – Nov `05
• Product Manager: Jul`01 – Mar `03
• Software Engineer: June `99 – Jul `01

Sheryl Sandberg:

• COO, Facebook: Mar `08 – Present
• Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations, Google Inc.: Nov `01 to Mar `08
• Chief of Staff, the United States Treasury Department: `96 – `01
• Management consultant, McKinsey & Company: `95 – `96

Education

Mayer graduated with honors from Stanford University with a BS in symbolic systems and an MS in computer science. Her specialization for both degrees was in artificial intelligence. In 2009, the Illinois Institute of Technology granted Mayer an honoris causa doctorate degree in recognition of her work in the field of Search.

Sandberg was consistently the class topper at the public school she attended in North Miami Beach, Florida. In 1987, she enrolled at Harvard College and graduated in 1991 summa cum laude with an A.B. in Economics and was awarded the John H. Williams Prize for the top graduating student in economics . While at Harvard, Sandberg studied under professor Larry Summers who became her mentor and thesis adviser. Summers recruited Sandberg to be his research assistant at the World Bank , where she worked for approximately one year on health projects in India dealing with leprosy, AIDS , and blindness. She enrolled in Harvard Business School in 1993 and earned her M.B.A. with highest distinction in `95.

Honors

In the last few years, Mayer and Sandberg appear consistently in the Top 50 most influential and powerful women in business as ranked by leading publications like Fortune , Forbes and Time . The graph depicts their respective ranks during 2007-2012 in Fortune magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business .

In 2008, Mayer, at 33, was the youngest woman ever listed. She was named one of Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year in 2009. In 2013, she became the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to have a spread in an issue in Vogue magazine. In September of the same year, Mayer became the first woman listed as #1 on Fortune magazine’s annual list of the top 40 business stars under 40 years.

In 2007, Sandberg was the youngest woman to appear on Fortune magazine’s Top 50 Women list. Other than Forbes , Fortune and Time , Sandberg also appeared on the Top 100 lists of other renowned publications like The Wall Street Journal , Newsweek , The Daily Beast and The Jerusalem Post .

Among her most famous and outstanding achievements is the publishing of Lean In , a book for professional women to help them achieve their career goals and for men who want to contribute to a more equitable society . Lean In is co-authored by Sheryl Sandberg and Nell Scovell.

Controversies and Criticism

Marissa Mayer has been under fire lately because of the Work From Home Ban issued by her soon after taking office. While there has been a lot of controversy, debates and opinions on whether this was a good move, the young CEO defends it saying “people are more productive when they’re alone…they’re more collaborative and innovative when they’re together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together.” How this works out, remains to be seen.

Sheryl Sandberg, author of womencentric book Lean In, advocate of women in the workspace, has been the recent object of criticism when a staff of the Lean In Foundation put up and a Facebook ad for an unpaid internship position. While unpaid internships are unheard of, the idea of not paying a (possibly) woman intern at a workplace that advocates women power, and whose co-founder makes billions seemed a bit ironic to critics. The foundation, however, has explained itself as the ad was post by an individual who happens to be a part of the Lean In Foundation, but for her personal intern, not on behalf of the foundation. In response to the criticism, however, the foundation plans to launch a formal paid internship program.

Recent News about Sandberg and Mayer

Personal Life

Mayer, born Marissa Ann Mayer in 1975, was the first child and only daughter to Michael Mayer, an environmental engineer who worked for water-treatment plants, and Margaret Mayer, an art teacher and stay-at-home mother. Her brother, Mason, is four years younger. Mayer married lawyer and investor Zachary Bogue in 2009. Their baby boy, Macallister, was born in September 2012.

Sandberg was born in 1969 in Washington, D.C. in a Jewish family; the daughter of Adele (née Einhorn) and Joel Sandberg, and the oldest of three siblings. Her father is an ophthalmologist , and her mother has a PhD and worked as a French teacher before committing completely to her children. Sandberg was married at age 24 but divorced a year later. She then married David Goldberg in 2004, with whom she has two children.

Trivia

• Mayer was the 20th employee at Google when she joined in 1999, and was the company’s first woman engineer.
• After graduating from Wausau West High School in 1993, Mayer was selected by Tommy Thompson , the then Governor of Wisconsin, to attend the National Youth Science Camp in West Virginia. Mayer was one of the state’s only two delegates to attend this camp.
• Mayer’s Finnish mother would decorate their home with Marimekko prints — a Finnish company known for its brightly colored designs against a clean white background. This is the design aesthetic that influenced Mayer’s own choices for Google’s minimalist user interface years later.

• Larry Summers, the United States Secretary of Treasury under President Bill Clinton, was Sandberg’s mentor and thesis adviser at Harvard.

References

• Wikipedia: Marissa Mayer
• Wikipedia: Sheryl Sandberg
• Forbes 50 Most Powerful Women in Business
• Forbes Magainze, Marissa Mayer
• Forbes Magazine, Sandberg
• Work from Home Ban – HuffPo
• Mayer Addresses WFH Ban – HuffPo
• Sandberg’s Non-Profit to start Paid Internship Program after Controvery – HuffPo
• Is Marissa Mayer Helping Yahoo Or Hurting the Struggling Tech Giant? – Vanity Fair