Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has called for changes to public and corporate policy to close the gender pay gap.
Sandberg told presenter Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that equal numbers of women and men should be interviewed for jobs.
“We need to start paying women well and we need the public and the corporate policy to get there,” she said.
“Certainly, women applying for jobs at the same rate as men [and] women running for office at the same rate as men – that has got to be part of the answer.
“We start telling little girls not to lead at a really young age and we start to tell boys [to] lead at a very young age. That is a mistake.
“I believe everyone has inside them the ability to lead and we should let people choose that, not based on their gender, but on who they are and who they want to be.”
The issue is in the spotlight after the publication of BBC pay rates for broadcast talent, which showed a discrepancy between men and women.
Sandberg is estimated by Forbes magazine to be worth $1.7 billion (£1.3bn).
Sandberg features as one of our ‘100 women in tech role models’ last year, a feature you can read in the digital magazine below.