Google's Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations, Sheryl Sandberg, has been signed on by Facebook and will start as the social network's COO on the 24th of March. After having a good run with the Mountain View based company, she is now going after something a little more challenging, apparently. Time and again I've asked whether a managerial position at Google isn't the apex of a career, and apparently more and more people are confirming it by their actions.

The International Herald Tribune quotes Sandberg as to her motivation for making the leap: "For me, that is part of the excitement. I've loved being part of the process of helping to build Google. The opportunity to help another young company to grow into a global leader is the opportunity of a lifetime." Among other attributions, Sandberg is on the board of Google.org / the Google Foundation and directs the Google Grants program.

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg is very excited about the move and says that "Sheryl is a great manager who will help scale Facebook's operations globally. She has relevant experience and a track record of scaling business operations and building new kinds of advertising networks. Sheryl understands Facebook's goal of connecting everyone in the world and is passionate about building a business that will enable us to realize this mission."

Her job will be to change the continuously growing fan base that Facebook has, into a profit making business, as simple as that. Sheryl Sandberg joins the numerous Googlers that have switched to Facebook because of the challenge of actually having to fight for something that isn't already granted. After all, if you've got no point and no obstacles to overcome, making your work exciting, what else is there left? Plain routine.