LinkedIn's CEO surprised an employee with a selfie at her desk while she was away on vacation

Mariah Walton/LinkedIn

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner takes a photo at a vacationing employee's desk.

• LinkedIn employee Mariah Walton realized she was missing CEO Jeff Weiner's visit to the social network's Dublin offices, so she left him a note.
• Weiner saw her note and took a selfie at her desk, apologizing for missing her. Walton shared the photo in a post that has since gone viral on LinkedIn.

When Dublin-based LinkedIn employee Mariah Walton realized that her vacation to Venice would mean missing a visit from LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, she took action.  

Since Walton wouldn't be there personally, she decided to leave a photo and note for Weiner, laying out her role and bemoaning that she'd miss her chance for a selfie. Walton is an analytics manager with LinkedIn, having moved to Dublin after working from the Microsoft subsidiary's Silicon Valley headquarters for two and a half years. 

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"It doesn't hurt to 'subtly' remind them what you do and how it helps the big picture," writes Walton in a now-viral LinkedIn post. Well, Weiner clearly appreciated the effort, because Walton came back to find that Weiner had indeed taken a selfie with her selfie, at her desk. 

Walton posted the picture to LinkedIn, where it attracted almost 30,000 Likes and about 500 comments at the time of writing. Weiner himself chimed in, thanking Walton for her contributions. 

"Mariah, sorry I missed you this trip to Dublin. Keep up the great work on the international dashboard. Has been a game changer for the product team," wrote Weiner. His post has almost 4,000 Likes on its own.

In the comments to her post, Walton explains that she didn't have any meetings scheduled with Weiner during his visit to the Dublin office, and he wasn't specifically there to meet her team  - she just didn't want to miss her chance to make an impression on the CEO. And it looks like it worked, judging by the reaction.

It's that kind of attention to detail, perhaps, that helped earn Weiner the #35 slot on Glassdoor's 2017 list of the highest-rated CEOs in the world, ahead of contemporaries like Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (#39), Twitter/Square CEO Jack Dorsey (#38), and Apple CEO Tim Cook (#53).

However, Weiner is a little behind Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (#29), who masterminded the $26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016, and who has his own reputation for being a pretty good boss.

Also of note is Walton's travel advice for Weiner during her trip to Venice, as shared in her note: "Just avoid the fake Mexican food."

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