How the star of Sheryl Sandberg dimmed

[Glasgow]

It has been a sharp turn for Sheryl Sandberg.

Just last year, the Facebook executive was touring to promote her latest bestseller, basking in the glow of being a global business celebrity, frequent presence on most powerful women lists and rumoured US political candidate.

But as Facebook has lurched from scandal to scandal over the past 18 months, investors, customers and and lawmakers alike have been looking for a scapegoat.

And with Mark Zuckerberg - who founded the social network out of his Harvard dorm room in 2004 - perceived as nearly untouchable, the pressure has mounted on his second-in-command.

Mr Zuckerberg and Facebook's board have said they stand by Ms Sandberg, resisting calls for her to step down.

But when former First Lady Michelle Obama used uncharacteristically loose language to dismiss Ms Sandberg's career advice catchphrase, "lean in", she seemed to underline just how far Ms Sandberg's star had fallen.

"It's not always enough to lean in because that [expletive] doesn't work," Mrs Obama said.

Some of the anger directed at Ms Sandberg makes sense.

Ms Sandberg, who helped develop Google's ad business before joining Facebook as chief operating officer in 2008, is a key architect of the world of online advertising.

That industry is now reeling from a series of scandals related to the collection of personal data, election interference by foreign governments and discrimination complaints.

Ms Sandberg has overseen Facebook's response to the controversies, which has seen the firm publicly pledging to do better, while privately hiring a hard-nosed opposition research firm to investigate critics and competitors.

The strategy has failed to quell the criticism.

Facebook's market value has plunged by nearly $200bn since July, US authorities have re-opened investigations and lawmakers appear increasingly inclined to pass new rules regulating the firm.

Recent reports in the New York Times that revealed some of the more unseemly details of the campaign - such as queries about whether investor George Soros stood to gain financially from his criticism - only aggravated public outrage.

"Shame on you, Sheryl. I believed in you, I leaned in. You are a fraud. You were supposed to be the adult supervision, but you are just another corrupt, corporate shill," one woman, Carol Tiernan, wrote recently on Ms Sandberg's Facebook page.

Few would argue that the fault lies with Ms Sandberg alone.