Sarah Friar

Last updated

Sarah Friar
OBE
Sarah Friar MoneyConf 2018.jpg
Friar in 2018
Born
Sarah Jane Friar

(1972-12-24) 24 December 1972 (age 52)
Sion Mills, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Education
OccupationBusiness executive
Known for
Children2

Sarah Jane Friar OBE (born 24 December 1972 [1] ) is an Irish-American business executive who has been the chief financial officer of OpenAI since June 2024. [2] She was the chief executive officer of American technology company Nextdoor from 2018 to 2024 [3] and the chief financial officer of Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) from 2012 to 2018. [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Early life

Born in 1972, Friar grew up in the town of Sion Mills in Northern Ireland. [7] [1] She attended Strabane Grammar School. [8] Friar won a scholarship from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen after entering a competition; she then worked there for a year before pursuing engineering studies at University of Oxford. [9] She studied metallurgy, economics, and management at Oxford, and then completed an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she was an Arjay Miller scholar. [1] [10] Friar interned at Ashanti Goldfields in 1990s, during which she was assigned to work at a gold mine in Ghana. [11]

Career

Friar was an analyst for McKinsey in South Africa, [12] a managing director in equity research at Goldman Sachs, and a senior vice president of finance and strategy at Salesforce [13] before becoming chief financial officer (CFO) at Square in 2012, [14] [15] [16] and then joining Nextdoor, a hyperlocal social networking service for neighborhoods, as CEO in 2018. She led the company public through a special-purpose acquisition company in 2021. [17] Nextdoor announced Friar would step down as CEO in mid-2024. [18] In June 2024, she joined OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research organization that develops ChatGPT, as its first CFO. [2]

Friar serves on the boards of Walmart and ConsenSys, [19] [20] and previously sat on the boards of Slack Technologies and New Relic's boards. [21] She also co-chairs Stanford's Digital Economy Lab and runs Ladies Who Launch, a non-profit focused on female entrepreneurs that she co-founded. [22] [23] [5]

She received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Ulster University in 2018. [24] In 2019, she was granted an Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II for her commitment to entrepreneurship and financial services. [25] [26]

Personal life

Friar is married to David Riley, a former hedge fund partner. [13] The couple has a daughter and son. [27] She lives in Marin County, California. [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Nimmo, Jamie (23 January 2022). "Nextdoor chief Sarah Friar: I grew up with bombs, so I don't want to spread hate" . The Sunday Times . Archived from the original on 23 January 2022.
  2. 1 2 "OpenAI hires former Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar as first CFO". Reuters. 10 June 2024. Archived from the original on 11 June 2024. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  3. ↑ "Nextdoor Announces Leadership Transition and Reports Preliminary Q4 2023 Financial Results". Yahoo Finance . 23 February 2024. Archived from the original on 17 April 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
  4. ↑ Gelles, David (13 August 2020). "A Lifetime of Seeing the Good and the Bad Between Neighbors". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  5. 1 2 Rudegeair, Peter (27 February 2021). "Where Nextdoor's CEO Looks for Neighborly Advice". The Wall Street Journal . ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  6. ↑ "Nextdoor's CEO wants to do for community what Jane Fonda did for fitness". Fortune . Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  7. ↑ "Tyrone's Sarah Friar leads US Nextdoor into €3.6bn Spac deal". Irish Independent . 6 July 2021. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  8. ↑ Campbell, John (5 June 2017). "Sarah Friar: From Sion Mills to Silicon Valley". BBC News . Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  9. ↑ Weckler, Adrian (9 November 2016). "Hip to be Square: meet the most important Irish tech boss you've never heard of". Irish Independent .
  10. ↑ "Sarah Friar". Stanford Graduate School of Business . Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  11. ↑ Fortson, Danny (8 July 2018). "I took a one-way ticket to the Valley, says Square's Sarah Friar". The Sunday Times .
  12. ↑ "Sarah Friar, the neighbour-in-chief steering Nextdoor to public markets". Financial Times . 9 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  13. 1 2 Cook, James (13 May 2019). "From Sion Mills to Silicon Valley: How Sarah Friar became one of the most prominent women in technology". The Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  14. ↑ Wang, Selina (10 October 2018). "Square CFO Sarah Friar steps down to join Nextdoor as CEO". San Francisco Chronicle . Archived from the original on 24 February 2024. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  15. ↑ "Sarah Friar". Corporate - US. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  16. ↑ "Sarah Friar". Forbes . Archived from the original on 6 July 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  17. ↑ Lublin, Joann S. (4 September 2022). "Nextdoor's CEO Sarah Friar Is Opening Doors for Smaller Businesses". Time . Archived from the original on 24 February 2024. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  18. ↑ Savitz, Eric J. (23 February 2024). "Nextdoor Jumps as CEO Exits and Founder Takes Over. It's Buying Back More Stock" . Barron's . Archived from the original on 24 February 2024.
  19. ↑ "Sarah Friar". Corporate - US. Archived from the original on 6 July 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  20. ↑ Hinchliffe, Emma; Mcglauflin, Paige (8 April 2022). "The Broadsheet: a daily newsletter for and about the world's most powerful women". Fortune . Archived from the original on 8 April 2022.
  21. ↑ Swisher, Kara (15 March 2017). "Slack is adding Square CFO Sarah Friar as its first independent board member". Vox .
  22. ↑ Savitz, Eric J. (10 June 2024). "OpenAI Names a CFO. It's Likely To Spur Speculation About a Potential IPO". Barron's . Archived from the original on 9 October 2024. Retrieved 18 January 2025.
  23. ↑ Murphy, Hannah; Waters, Richard (17 April 2020). "Sarah Friar, Nextdoor's 'chief neighbour' extends her watch". Financial Times .
  24. ↑ "Ulster University graduations results: Honour for Silicon Valley boss Sarah Friar". Belfast Telegraph . 9 July 2018.
  25. ↑ Hughes, David (23 June 2019). "Queen's birthday honours list 2019: full list of everyone being recognised this year". i . Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  26. ↑ "Sion Mills native awarded an OBE in Queen's Birthday Honours". Strabane Weekly News . 21 June 2019.
  27. ↑ Canning, Margaret (28 February 2020). "Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar: My business has taken off in Northern Ireland as people here are so neighbourly". Belfast Telegraph . Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
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