Sheryl Sandberg: ‘Men still run the world – and I’m not sure it’s going that well’

Only 11 women serve as head of state, and 10 serve as head of government, according to the latest data from UN Women.

Sheryl Sandberg used a session on the future of work at the World Economic Forum in Davos to talk about the problems arising from the gender gap.

Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and a rare female leader in the male-dominated technology industry. She was also the only woman on a six-person panel debating: The Transformation of Tomorrow or how the Fourth Industrial Revolution will transform industries and societies.

“At the risk of shocking everyone so early in the morning, men still run the world – and I’m not sure it’s going that well,” Sandberg said.

Sandberg appeared on the panel with Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, and Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda.

She told participants that only 17 countries out of hundreds of countries in the world are run by women.

“That means when it comes to making the decisions that impact our world, women are not at those tables where decisions are made,” she said.

Only 11 women serve as head of state, and 10 serve as head of government, according to the latest data from UN Women.

Almost 30 per cent of women are paid below the living wage, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics.

More women than ever are now sitting on the boards of Britain’s biggest companies but the top jobs continue to be dominated by men, according to the FTSE 100 companies annual progress report.

Sandberg is the author of the best-selling book Lean In. Last year, she co-authored a piece for The New York Times on why "women stay quiet at work". She also backed the Ban Bossy campaign to stop the derogatory term being used for decisive women.