Sarah Friar is Chief Financial Officer of Square (NYSE: SQ). Sarah joined Square in July 2012 from salesforce.com, where she served as SVP of Finance & Strategy. Prior to salesforce.com, Sarah worked at Goldman Sachs for over 10 years. She previously worked for McKinsey in both London and South Africa.
Sarah sits on the Boards of Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Slack, a business communications platform, and is the vice-chair of the Board of Spark, a nonprofit passionate about changing the lives of at-risk middle schoolers through mentorship. Sarah is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Finance Leaders Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She earned her MEng in Metallurgy, Economics, and Management from the University of Oxford and her MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where she graduated as an Arjay Miller scholar.
Sneak Peek Into What You’ll Learn…
1:51 – Sarah discusses Square’s purpose to support economic empowerment for individuals and small businesses.
5:57– We learn more about Sarah’s early years in Northern Ireland and the values she learned from her parents.
6:44 – Sarah gives specific advice about leadership and the approach that helps her to be a great leader.
10:06 – Sarah provides concrete advice for women who want to excel in male-dominated industries. She discusses the importance of having a personal board of directors and the specific type of people you should recruit for your board.
15:44 – How do you ask a CEO to be your mentor? Sarah talks about multiple strategies for approaching senior leaders and how to ask them to mentor you.
19:29 – What has Sarah learned from set-backs in her career? She opens up and tells us more about what she learned when her career didn’t develop as planned.
29:11 – Sarah tells us more about her family life and how she juggles a big job with raising two kids. She provides clear advice about how she successfully integrates work and family.
33:51 – What would we be surprised to learn about Sarah? She takes us behind the curtain to reveal more about how she approaches life.
38:18 – Brass Tacks: The lightning round of concrete advice and tips.
Quotable quotes
- “You should have a mentor in your current situation who sees you day to day.”
- “Don’t do something just because you think you should. If you’re happy and good at something, you’re going to just fly…”
- “Think hard about those moments of failure. They’re telling you something.”
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