The Next Genderation: Sharon Meers

Sharon Meers
Head of Sales & Business Development at X.commerce, a division of eBay

Sharon Meers leads business development for X.commerce, the open commerce platform division of eBay, helping merchants grow with better technology.  Prior to joining X.commerce, Sharon ran business operations for product marketing at HP-Palm.

Sharon is also co-author of Getting to 50-50, a book about men and women finding common ground and success together-so women can enjoy full careers and men can enjoy full parenthood.  The book launched on the Today show in 2009 and has been featured in many publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Fortune.

Sharon Meers was previously a managing director at Goldman Sachs where she worked for 16 years.  When she first joined Goldman, Meers worked in Fixed Income Sales and then spent five years as part of a team restructuring financial institutions following the S & L crisis.  In 1996, Sharon moved to San Francisco to re-establish Goldman's equity derivative business on the West Coast.  In 1999, she opened a private banking office in Menlo Park to address the fast-growing Silicon Valley business. From 2002-2004, Sharon ran the national product management team in Goldman Sachs Asset Management focused on the private banking business, and in 2005 she moved to equity research in San Francisco.  While at Goldman, Sharon co-chaired the Women's Network in the Investment Management Division, served on the diversity committees of two of the firm's divisions, and developed a mentorship program that linked high-potential women to senior male advisors.  In 2005 she left Goldman to do the research and writing for the book.

Sharon and her husband created the Partnership for Parity at Stanford Business School and the Dual-Career Initiative at Harvard University to help shift the dialog about work-making it more fact-based, co-ed, and fun.

Sharon lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Steve, a commercial real estate developer, and their son (10) and daughter (7).