Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg: Women-owned businesses ‘do incredibly well’

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has said that women-owned businesses perform remarkably well.

Sandberg was being interviewed at CNBC’s Small Business Playbook: The Path Forward event on Wednesday.

Answering a question by interviewer Jim Cramer, who had asked how the income gap between men and women can be closed, the Facebook COO said, “So one way of closing the gap is entrepreneurship,” according to the interview’s unofficial transcript that US and Global News received from NBCUniversal, the owner of CNBC.

“Businesses can be started by women,” she added. “Those businesses do incredibly well.”

The Facebook operations chief said that it makes sense when we see women-owned businesses are more active on her social network.

“We see that often businesses by women are more active on Facebook, and that makes sense,” said Sandberg.

She elaborated, “When you take down the traditional barriers that have long benefited men more than women, it makes sense that more women and people of color and women of color, so important always, but on Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, a good moment to note that, are able to use those tools because they’re broadly available to anyone.”

It is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day in the United States today (Thursday).

The tools Sandberg referred to are the free tools Facebook offers for anybody, including businesses, to set up presence on the social network and on photo and video sharing social networking service Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

“Online tools are something anyone can use,” Sheryl Sandberg said. “And I think you’re right that these tools are even more important for people who have a harder time in the traditional power structure of business.”

Image credit - Copyright by World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland. swiss-image.ch/Photo Michael Wuertenberg (Source: Women in Economic Decision-making: Sheryl Sandberg) (Photo licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)