Sheryl Sandberg at ZEIT RECEPTION Davos: “We have not done a good job at explaining our business model”
At a reception hosted by the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT and CMS, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook Inc., and Christian Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank AG, discussed their recent professional challenges with Uwe Jean Heuser, Head of the Economics Department at DIE ZEIT.
Sheryl Sandberg defended Facebook’s advertising business model: “We do not sell data. […] What we do is, we use information to show relevant ads”. In retrospective, though, she acknowledged: “We have not done a good job at explaining our business model”. She promised: “We are committed to being better in helping people understand how their information is used.”
Christian Sewing recounted what he first thought when he heard about the money laundering scandal at Danske Bank: “It’s disappointing, not personally for me – but you have 92.000 people who are working every day to restructure Deutsche Bank. We got the feedback from regulators that our controls have improved. And if you have this kind of incident then, you’re disappointed”, Sewing said. Asked about his reaction to the accusations, Sewing went on to say that “this is what you have to deal with, what leadership is all about. You collect yourself. You cooperate with the prosecutors. We think that there is no wrongdoing on our side”.
The ZEIT RECEPTION Davos was held on the occasion of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT in cooperation with CMS invited leading representatives from the worlds of business and politics to a roundtable discussion and reception.
