Sarah Friar

Sarah Friar
Born	Sarah Jane Friar 24 12, 1972
Birthplace	Sion Mills, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Nationality	Irish, American
Occupation	Business executive
Known for	CFO of OpenAI, CEO of Nextdoor, CFO of Block, Inc. (Square)
Education	Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA, 2000)
Children	2
Awards	OBE (2019)

Sarah Jane Friar (born 24 December 1972) is an Irish-American business executive who has served as chief financial officer (CFO) of OpenAI since June 2024. Born in the small village of Sion Mills in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, during the height of the Troubles, Friar rose through the ranks of global finance and technology to become one of the most prominent executives in Silicon Valley. She served as chief executive officer of the neighborhood social networking platform Nextdoor from 2018 to 2024, leading the company through its transition to a publicly traded entity, and prior to that spent six years as CFO of Square, Inc. (now Block, Inc.), helping guide the payments company through a period of significant growth and its initial public offering. In November 2025, Friar was elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees. She has also served on the board of directors of Walmart.

Early Life

Sarah Jane Friar was born on 24 December 1972 in Sion Mills, a small village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. She grew up during the Troubles, the period of sectarian conflict that shaped life in Northern Ireland for decades. In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Friar discussed her upbringing and the formative influence of growing up in a divided society. The experience of living in a community marked by conflict and division would later inform her interest in fostering local connections and neighborliness — themes central to her tenure at Nextdoor.

Sion Mills, situated near Strabane in the western part of Northern Ireland, was a small and close-knit community. Friar has spoken publicly about how her roots in the village shaped her worldview and her approach to business leadership. In her LinkedIn banner photo, she quotes the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney: "Walk on air, against your better judgment," a line that colleagues and profiles have noted reflects her willingness to take risks throughout her career.

Friar's journey from Northern Ireland to the upper echelons of Silicon Valley was described by The Telegraph in a 2019 profile that traced her path from the village to the top of the American technology industry. The Belfast Telegraph also covered her trajectory, highlighting her as one of Northern Ireland's most prominent figures in global business.

Education

Friar studied engineering and economics at universities in the United Kingdom before pursuing graduate education in the United States. She earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2000. Her time at Stanford proved formative for her career in technology and finance, and she has maintained close ties to the university throughout her career.

In 2018, Ulster University conferred an honorary degree upon Friar in recognition of her achievements in the technology industry, an event covered by the Belfast Telegraph. Friar was later elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees in November 2025, alongside McKinsey & Company global managing partner Bob Sternfels.

Career

Early Career and Wall Street

Prior to entering the technology sector, Friar built a career in finance. After completing her MBA at Stanford in 2000, she worked as an analyst and executive at prominent financial institutions. Her experience on Wall Street provided her with deep expertise in corporate finance, capital markets, and strategic planning, skills that would later define her roles at major technology companies.

Square, Inc. (2012–2018)

In 2012, Friar joined Square, Inc. (later renamed Block, Inc.) as chief financial officer. Square, founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey, was then a rapidly growing financial technology company focused on providing payment processing services to small businesses. As CFO, Friar oversaw the company's financial operations during a period of significant expansion.

One of Friar's most notable accomplishments at Square was her role in guiding the company through its initial public offering (IPO). Square went public on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2015, and Friar was instrumental in the financial preparations and investor relations surrounding the offering.

During her six-year tenure as CFO, Square expanded its suite of financial products and grew its revenue substantially. Friar earned a reputation as one of the most effective CFOs in the technology industry. In 2017, she joined the board of directors of Slack Technologies, further extending her influence in the tech sector.

Friar departed Square in October 2018 to become CEO of Nextdoor. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on her departure, noting her significant contributions to Square's growth and public market debut.

Nextdoor (2018–2024)

In October 2018, Friar was appointed chief executive officer of Nextdoor, the American hyperlocal social networking platform that connects neighbors within geographic communities. Her appointment marked a shift from a financial leadership role to a general management position, and it represented one of the few instances at the time of a CFO from a major technology firm transitioning directly into a CEO role at another significant technology company.

Friar's background growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles was frequently cited in profiles as a driving motivation behind her interest in Nextdoor's mission of fostering local community connections. In interviews, she drew parallels between the divided communities of her childhood and the potential for technology to bring neighbors together. In a 2020 interview with Fortune, Friar discussed her leadership philosophy and the challenges facing the platform.

Under Friar's leadership, Nextdoor experienced significant growth, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for local information and neighborhood connectivity surged. The platform became a key resource for communities organizing mutual aid, sharing public health information, and staying connected during lockdowns.

A major milestone of Friar's tenure was Nextdoor's transition to a publicly traded company. In 2021, Nextdoor went public through a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal that valued the company at approximately $3.6 billion, according to reporting by the Irish Independent. The SPAC merger allowed Nextdoor to access public capital markets and represented a significant achievement for Friar and the company.

Friar also sought to address ongoing challenges at Nextdoor, including content moderation issues and efforts to prevent discrimination and racial profiling on the platform. In a 2021 interview with The Wall Street Journal, she discussed where she looked for advice in navigating these complex issues.

In February 2024, it was reported that Friar would step down as CEO of Nextdoor, as covered by Barron's. Her departure came after roughly five and a half years at the helm of the company.

OpenAI (2024–present)

In June 2024, Friar joined OpenAI as chief financial officer, taking on the finance leadership role at one of the most prominent artificial intelligence companies in the world. The appointment placed Friar at the center of the rapidly evolving AI industry, as OpenAI — the creator of ChatGPT — navigated questions about its business model, corporate structure, and enormous capital requirements.

In January 2026, OpenAI published a blog post authored by Friar outlining the company's evolving business strategy. The post described how OpenAI's business model was designed to "scale with intelligence," encompassing revenue streams from subscriptions, API access, advertising, commerce, and compute services. Friar also indicated that OpenAI would make 2026 its year of "practical adoption," focusing on helping organizations integrate AI tools into their operations, as reported by CNBC.

In an interview covered by Fortune in January 2026, Friar stated that there was a "mismatch" between AI's current abilities and the value that companies were capturing from the technology, suggesting that most organizations were barely scratching the surface of AI's potential. Business Insider reported on Friar's efforts to diversify OpenAI's revenue sources, including expanded partnerships, new subscription tiers, and outcome-based royalty arrangements to fund the substantial compute infrastructure required for AI development.

In November 2025, Friar clarified via a LinkedIn post that OpenAI was not seeking a government backstop for its operations, after a prior comment had created confusion. CNBC reported on the clarification, noting Friar's effort to address public misinterpretation of her earlier remarks.

Board Memberships

In addition to her executive roles, Friar has held several board positions. She joined the board of directors of Slack Technologies in 2017 while still serving as CFO of Square. She has also served on the board of directors of Walmart, one of the world's largest retailers. In November 2025, she was elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees.

Personal Life

Friar has two children. She has maintained connections to her hometown of Sion Mills in Northern Ireland throughout her career, and her Northern Irish identity has been a recurring theme in media profiles. In a 2020 New York Times profile, she discussed how her upbringing in Northern Ireland shaped her leadership style and her belief in the power of community.

Friar has spoken about the influence of the poet Seamus Heaney on her outlook. Her LinkedIn profile features the Heaney quote "Walk on air, against your better judgment," which colleagues have noted reflects her approach to risk-taking and career decisions.

She has also discussed her experiences as a woman in the technology and finance industries and has participated in forums and conferences addressing gender diversity in business leadership, including the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in 2020.

Recognition

Honours

In June 2019, Friar was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to technology. The honour was reported in the full Queen's Birthday Honours list published by i News. The recognition drew attention to Friar's journey from Sion Mills to leadership positions in Silicon Valley and was covered by regional media in Northern Ireland.

Honorary Degrees

In 2018, Ulster University conferred an honorary degree upon Friar, recognizing her contributions to the global technology industry and her role as a prominent figure from Northern Ireland in international business.

Media Recognition

Friar has been profiled extensively in major international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, the Financial Times, and Forbes. She has been included in various lists recognizing influential business leaders and has been a featured speaker at major business and technology conferences. The BBC also profiled Friar, highlighting her Northern Irish roots and her rise in the technology sector.

Legacy

Friar's career trajectory — from a small village in Northern Ireland during the Troubles to the C-suite of some of Silicon Valley's most prominent technology companies — has made her one of the most notable business figures to emerge from Northern Ireland. Her transition from CFO of Square to CEO of Nextdoor and then to CFO of OpenAI reflects a career marked by movement across different facets of the technology industry, from financial technology to social networking to artificial intelligence.

Her appointment as CFO of OpenAI in 2024 placed her at the nexus of one of the most consequential technological developments of the early 21st century. As the AI industry has grown in scale and influence, Friar's role in shaping OpenAI's financial strategy and business model has attracted significant attention from investors, policymakers, and the broader technology community.

Friar's repeated emphasis on the gap between AI's technical capabilities and the value organizations are extracting from the technology has positioned her as a prominent voice in discussions about AI's practical deployment. Her leadership at Nextdoor during the COVID-19 pandemic, and her earlier work at Square during the company's formative public years, have been cited as examples of her ability to guide technology companies through periods of rapid change and uncertainty.

Her election to the Stanford University Board of Trustees in 2025 further cemented her standing in the American technology and education establishment, while her OBE and honorary degree from Ulster University reflect continued recognition in her country of birth.