Sarah Friar - Chief Financial Officer of Square Inc
COUNTRY OF BIRTH
IrelandINDUSTRY
Technology
TOP ACHIEVEMENTS
Sarah Friar is an Irish business executive who is highly regarded in the technology industry. Friar is known for holding executive roles in several blue chip companies including Square and salesforce.com and for being compensated with over US$7 million in a single year – a staggering amount for any tech executive.
EARLY LIFE
Sarah Friar was born in a border town located between Co. Donegal and Co. Tyrone in Ireland. Her mother was a district nurse and her father was an HR manager. She grew up in a small village named Sion Mills. After entering a competition, Friar won a scholarship offered by an accounting company named Arthur Andersen and used this to achieve her ME in Metallurgy, Economics and management in 1996 at Oxford University. She continued her studies at Stanford Graduate School of Business where she earned her MBA in 2000.
ACHIEVEMENTS
After completing her first degree Sarah Friar launched her career as business analyst for McKinsey & Company where she spent two years and moved up the ranks quickly while working in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Friar’s next position was at Goldman and Sachs where she worked for ten years and also rapidly climbed the corporate ladder. Her final role at the company was Managing Director. After leaving Goldman and Sachs Friar worked at salesforce.com where she held the role of Senior Vice President of Finance and Strategy. In 2012 she was offered the position of Chief Financial Officer and Operations Lead at Square, an American company that produces a gadget box that connects smartphones to credit cards. With Friar and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey running Square it has achieved unprecedented success and became known as one of the fastest growing financial tech companies in the world.
