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 Square (Block, Inc.)
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, 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 company Nextdoor from 2018 to 2024 and as CFO of Square, Inc. (now Block, Inc.) from 2012 to 2018, guiding both companies through transformative periods of growth. In November 2025, Friar was elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees. Her career has spanned investment banking, equity research, and corporate leadership at some of the most significant technology companies of the early 21st century. Friar was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to technology.

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 prolonged ethno-nationalist conflict that affected Northern Ireland for decades. Sion Mills is a predominantly Protestant village situated along the River Mourne in the western part of the county, near the town of Strabane. In interviews, Friar has spoken about how her upbringing in a small, close-knit community during a period of civil unrest shaped her worldview and later influenced her interest in building stronger neighborhood connections — a theme that would become central to her work at Nextdoor.

Friar has often drawn connections between her Northern Irish roots and her professional career. The experience of growing up in a community where people looked out for one another despite the broader political turmoil informed her belief in the power of local connections. In her LinkedIn banner photo, Friar has quoted the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney: "Walk on air, against your better judgment," a line that she has cited as a guiding philosophy throughout her career.

The BBC has reported on Friar's journey from Northern Ireland to Silicon Valley, highlighting her as one of the most prominent business figures to emerge from the region.

Education

Friar studied engineering and economics at the university level before pursuing graduate business education. She earned her Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2000. In 2018, Ulster University conferred an honorary degree upon Friar in recognition of her achievements in the technology industry. The recognition reflected her status as one of Northern Ireland's most prominent exports to the global technology industry. In November 2025, Friar was elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees, further cementing her long-standing relationship with the university where she had received her MBA a quarter-century earlier.

Career

Early career and Wall Street

Before entering the technology industry as a corporate executive, Friar built a career in investment banking and equity research on Wall Street. She worked at Goldman Sachs, where she served as a senior analyst covering the technology sector. Her experience in finance and her analytical background provided a foundation for the executive roles she would later assume at major technology companies.

Salesforce.com

Prior to joining Square, Friar held positions at Salesforce, the enterprise cloud computing company. Her time at Salesforce gave her experience working inside a major technology firm and managing financial operations during a period of rapid growth in the cloud computing industry.

Square, Inc. (2012–2018)

Friar joined Square, Inc. (later renamed Block, Inc.) as CFO in 2012. At Square, she played a central role in the company's financial strategy during a formative period. The payments company, co-founded by Jack Dorsey, was at that time still a relatively young startup seeking to disrupt the financial services industry by enabling small businesses to accept card payments through mobile devices.

As CFO, Friar was instrumental in guiding Square through its initial public offering (IPO). Her tenure coincided with a period in which Square expanded its suite of financial products and services, growing from a payment processing hardware company into a broader financial technology platform. Her financial leadership was recognized within the industry, and she became one of the most high-profile CFOs in Silicon Valley.

During her time at Square, Friar also took on external board roles. In 2017, she joined the board of Slack Technologies, the workplace messaging platform, drawing attention as a prominent technology executive expanding her influence across the sector.

After six years as Square's CFO, Friar announced her departure in October 2018 to become CEO of Nextdoor. Her exit was covered extensively in the business press, with the San Francisco Chronicle and other outlets noting the significance of her move from one of Silicon Valley's most closely watched fintech companies to lead a social networking startup focused on local communities.

Nextdoor (2018–2024)

In October 2018, Friar was named chief executive officer of Nextdoor, the neighborhood-focused social networking platform. The appointment marked a transition from financial leadership to the top operational role at a company whose mission — fostering connections among neighbors — resonated with Friar's own background growing up in a close-knit Northern Irish village.

Under Friar's leadership, Nextdoor underwent significant expansion. The platform, which allows users to connect with others in their local neighborhood, grew its user base and expanded into new markets. Friar frequently spoke about the company's mission in interviews, including at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in 2020, where she discussed her vision for how Nextdoor could strengthen communities.

In a 2020 interview with The New York Times for its "Corner Office" series, Friar discussed her leadership philosophy and the path that led her from Northern Ireland to Silicon Valley. She also spoke with the Wall Street Journal about where she sought advice in running the company.

One of the most significant milestones of Friar's tenure as CEO was taking Nextdoor public. In 2021, the company went public through a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger, in a deal that valued Nextdoor at approximately $3.6 billion. The Irish Independent reported on the deal, highlighting Friar's Tyrone roots and her role in leading the American technology company to the public markets.

Friar's time at Nextdoor also coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the platform saw increased usage as people turned to hyperlocal networks to organize mutual aid, share information about local resources, and stay connected while under lockdown orders. In an interview with The Times, Friar discussed how the pandemic had impacted both the company and communities across Northern Ireland and beyond.

Friar stepped down as CEO of Nextdoor in 2024, as reported by Barron's. Her departure came as she prepared to take on a new role at one of the most closely watched companies in the technology industry.

OpenAI (2024–present)

In June 2024, Friar was appointed chief financial officer of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research and deployment company behind ChatGPT. The appointment placed Friar at the center of one of the most consequential developments in the technology industry, as OpenAI navigated rapid growth, evolving business models, and intense public scrutiny regarding the development of artificial intelligence.

At OpenAI, Friar has been responsible for overseeing the company's financial strategy during a period of significant expansion. In January 2026, she authored a blog post announcing that OpenAI would make 2026 its year of "practical adoption," signaling a shift in emphasis from pure research toward broader commercial deployment of AI technologies.

Friar has outlined OpenAI's evolving revenue strategy publicly. In January 2026, Business Insider reported on her presentation of new revenue sources to fund the company's computing infrastructure, including expanded partnerships, new subscription tiers, and outcome-based royalties. OpenAI published a post describing its business model as one that "scales with intelligence," spanning subscriptions, API access, advertising, commerce, and compute.

In a January 2026 interview with Fortune, Friar stated that there was a "mismatch" between AI's abilities and the value that companies were capturing from the technology, suggesting that the full economic potential of artificial intelligence had yet to be realized by most organizations.

In November 2025, Friar clarified in a LinkedIn post that OpenAI was not seeking a government financial backstop for its operations, responding to public discussion about a prior comment that had been interpreted differently. CNBC reported on the clarification, which addressed questions about the company's financing and its relationship with government entities.

Board memberships

In addition to her executive roles, Friar has served on several corporate boards. She joined the board of Slack Technologies in 2017 while still serving as CFO of Square. She has also been associated with Walmart's board of directors, as indicated by the company's corporate leadership page.

In November 2025, Friar was elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees alongside Bob Sternfels, the global managing partner of McKinsey & Company. Stanford described her as "Sarah J. Friar, MBA '00," referencing her Stanford MBA degree.

Personal Life

Friar has two children. She has maintained strong ties to Northern Ireland throughout her career. Despite living in the United States, she has spoken frequently about her roots in Sion Mills and the influence of her upbringing on her personal and professional life.

In interviews, Friar has discussed the particular experience of growing up during the Troubles and how the resilience and community bonds she witnessed in Northern Ireland informed her approach to business leadership. She has been featured in both Northern Irish and British media as one of the region's most prominent figures in the global technology industry.

Friar has quoted the poet Seamus Heaney as a personal inspiration, displaying his words "Walk on air, against your better judgment" on her LinkedIn profile.

Recognition

Friar has received multiple honors and forms of recognition throughout her career.

In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours, Friar was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to technology. The honour recognized both her professional achievements and her role in promoting the technology sector.

In 2018, Ulster University awarded Friar an honorary degree during its graduation ceremonies, acknowledging her accomplishments in the technology industry and her roots in Northern Ireland.

Friar has been recognized by Forbes on its profile of notable executives and has been featured at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. She has been profiled extensively in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, and the BBC.

Her election to the Stanford University Board of Trustees in 2025 represented a further recognition of her standing in both the business and academic communities.

Legacy

Friar's career trajectory — from a small village in Northern Ireland to the executive suites of some of Silicon Valley's most significant companies — has made her a notable figure in the global technology industry. Her progression from Wall Street analyst to CFO of Square, CEO of Nextdoor, and CFO of OpenAI represents a career that has intersected with several of the most consequential trends in technology and finance, including the rise of mobile payments, the growth of social networking, and the emergence of artificial intelligence.

Her role at Square during its IPO and growth phase established her as one of the leading financial executives in the technology sector. At Nextdoor, she led the company through its SPAC-driven public listing and guided it through the challenges and opportunities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for hyperlocal social networking surged.

At OpenAI, Friar holds one of the most prominent CFO positions in the technology industry, overseeing the financial operations of a company at the forefront of the development and commercialization of artificial intelligence. Her public statements about the "mismatch" between AI capabilities and their commercial adoption, as well as her outlining of new revenue models, have positioned her as a central voice in discussions about the economics of AI.

In Northern Ireland, Friar has been recognized as one of the region's most successful exports to the global technology industry. Her OBE, her honorary degree from Ulster University, and her frequent references to her upbringing in Sion Mills have kept her connected to her origins even as her career has taken her to the highest levels of American business.