Sheryl Sandberg was born in Washington, D.C., in 1969. She went to Harvard for her bachelor’s degree in economics and worked at the World Bank after graduating summa cum laude. She then attended Harvard Business School and went to work in the U.S.

Department of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. When the Republicans swept the Democrats out of office in November 2000, Sandberg moved to Silicon Valley and worked for Google for seven years. She then moved to Facebook, where she has been COO since 2008. Sandberg is the author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which has sold more than a million copies.