Sheryl Sandberg: What’s It Like To Be The Youngest Female Billionaire In The World?

Sheryl Sandberg just became a billionaire, making her the 139th female billionaire in the world, according to Forbes.

Following a record high close for Facebook shares on Tuesday, when they reached a massive $58.51 reflecting an increase of 4 percent, Sandberg, 44, crept into the billionaire’s club in her role as COO of Facebook.

She owns 12.3 million shares, which makes her stake worth about $720 million. In addition, she owns around 4.7 million options worth about $220.6 million. If you combine that with the estimated value of her stock awards, Sheryl Sandberg is a billionaire in her own right.

Billionaires worldwide are rare enough, but female billionaires are even rarer. Bloomberg‘s list of the world’s 200 richest people contains only 17 woman. According to Forbes, last year there were 138 female billionaires in the world, making Sheryl Sandberg the 139th.

In saying that, only 24 of the 138 woman in the Forbes list actually earned the money themselves; the rest inherited it from their rich families. Sandberg falls into the former category, not the latter.

Early in her career, Sandberg was the chief of staff to Lawrence Summers, who was the Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. She then worked at Google for a while, before joining Facebook in 2008.

On top of the new billionaire status, Sheryl Sandberg was also named the fifth most powerful businesswoman, according to Fortune magazine. With earnings in 2012 of $26.2 million, she also became the third highest paid woman that year.

Sheryl Sandberg may have achieved a lot, including massive wealth, but it’s just a drop in the ocean if you compare her to Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg. At just 29, Zuckerberg owns 426.3 million Facebook shares which alone are worth around $25 billion.

Sheryl Sandberg will hopefully be feeling very welcome to the billionaires club as she proves herself to be one of the most influential and successful businesswoman in the world.