Sarah Friar
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Sarah Jane Friar (born December 24, 1972) is a Northern Irish-American business executive who has served as chief financial officer (CFO) of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, since June 2024. Before joining OpenAI she spent more than two decades in technology and finance, including roles as a managing director in equity research at Goldman Sachs, chief financial officer of the payments company Block (formerly Square) from 2012 to 2018, and chief executive officer of the neighborhood social network Nextdoor from 2018 to 2024.[1][2] She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2019 and named to the 2026 TIME100 list of the world's most influential people.[1][10]
Friar was born on December 24, 1972, and grew up in Sion Mills, a village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.[1] She attended Strabane Grammar School. As a teenager she won a scholarship from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen after entering a competition, and she worked for the firm for about a year before beginning university.[1]
She studied at the University of Oxford, where she earned a master's degree in engineering, with her course combining metallurgy, economics, and management.[1] During the 1990s she also spent time working at a gold mine in Ghana through the mining company Ashanti Goldfields. Friar later moved to the United States to attend Stanford University, completing an MBA at its Graduate School of Business as a member of the class of 2000. She was recognized there as an Arjay Miller Scholar, an honor reserved for students who finish near the top of their class.[1][13]
Friar began her professional career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, working in the firm's offices in London and South Africa.[1] After completing her MBA she joined Goldman Sachs in September 2000 and spent roughly eleven years at the bank. She worked in investment banking and equity research, eventually becoming a managing director and the lead software analyst, and was named business unit leader for the firm's technology research group. She built a reputation as one of Wall Street's most influential analysts covering enterprise software.[1]
In 2011 Friar left Goldman Sachs to move into operating roles, joining the cloud software company Salesforce as senior vice president of finance and strategy.[1] She held the position for about a year and a half before being recruited to become a startup chief financial officer.
In 2012, Friar became chief financial officer of Square, the payments company co-founded and led by Jack Dorsey; the firm was later renamed Block in 2021.[1][4] As CFO she helped professionalize the company's finances and led it through its November 2015 initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. During her tenure Square's market value grew substantially, and she came to be regarded as one of the most respected finance chiefs in Silicon Valley.[1][4]
On October 10, 2018, Square announced that Friar would step down as CFO to become chief executive officer of Nextdoor, a social networking platform organized around local neighborhoods.[4] As CEO she expanded the company internationally and oversaw growth in its user base and advertising business. In 2021 she led Nextdoor onto the public markets through a merger with Khosla Ventures Acquisition Co. II, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The transaction valued Nextdoor at about $4.3 billion and closed on November 5, 2021, with the combined company beginning to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "KIND" on November 8, 2021.[5][6] Friar led Nextdoor until 2024.
The table below summarizes her principal roles.
| Period | Organization | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Late 1990s | McKinsey & Company | Consultant (London and South Africa) |
| 2000 to 2011 | Goldman Sachs | Equity research; managing director and lead software analyst |
| 2011 to 2012 | Salesforce | Senior vice president, finance and strategy |
| 2012 to 2018 | Square (now Block) | Chief financial officer |
| 2018 to 2024 | Nextdoor | Chief executive officer |
| 2024 to present | OpenAI | Chief financial officer |
In June 2024, OpenAI announced that Friar would join as its chief financial officer, alongside Kevin Weil as chief product officer.[2][3] The finance role had been effectively vacant for about two years: Brad Lightcap had held the CFO title before moving into the chief operating officer position.[3] OpenAI said Friar would lead a finance team responsible for supporting the company's research investments and helping it scale to meet growing global demand.[2] In the role she took charge of fundraising, financial planning, and commercialization strategy during a period of extraordinarily rapid growth, as the company, led by chief executive Sam Altman, pursued hundreds of billions of dollars in computing and data-center commitments to train and serve its models.[2][7]
In November 2025, Friar drew widespread attention for remarks about how OpenAI might finance its enormous infrastructure spending. Speaking on stage at the Wall Street Journal's Tech Live conference on November 5, 2025, she said the company was looking to build an ecosystem of banks, private equity, and a federal "backstop" or "guarantee" that could help finance its investments in cutting-edge chips.[7][8] The comments prompted a sharp backlash online, with critics arguing that a private company should not look to taxpayers to underwrite its bets, given that OpenAI had announced more than $1 trillion in data-center and chip commitments.[7]
Friar moved quickly to clarify. In a LinkedIn post the same week she wrote, "I used the word 'backstop' and it muddied the point," adding that she had meant that American strength in technology would come from building real industrial capacity, "which requires the private sector and government playing their part."[7] Altman reinforced the message on the social platform X, writing that OpenAI did not have or want government guarantees for its data centers and that "governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions or otherwise lose in the market."[8]
As OpenAI's finances came under closer scrutiny, Friar became a prominent voice on whether and when the company might go public. In January 2026 she said there was a "mismatch" between the capabilities of AI systems and the value that companies were so far capturing from them.[12] In April 2026 she told CNBC that OpenAI planned to set aside a portion of shares for retail investors in an eventual initial public offering, citing "really strong demand" from individuals during a recent funding round.[9] Reporting in 2026 indicated that Friar had counseled caution about the timing of any listing, reflecting concern about the company's spending commitments and cash burn, even as Altman was said to favor going public sooner.[9] As of June 2026 she remained OpenAI's CFO.
Friar has been widely recognized for her work in technology and finance. In 2018 she received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Ulster University for service to the international technology industry.[11] The following year she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to entrepreneurship and financial services.[1] In 2026 she was named to the TIME100, the magazine's annual list of the world's 100 most influential people, which praised her "rare combination of operating rigor, creative judgment, and deep personal connection."[10]
Beyond her corporate roles, Friar co-founded Ladies Who Launch, a nonprofit that supports women entrepreneurs, and she co-chairs the advisory group of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.[13][14] She has served on the boards of Walmart and the blockchain software company ConsenSys, and previously sat on the boards of Slack Technologies and New Relic.[1][14] She is a trustee of Stanford University, a member of the advisory board of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford, and a fellow of the Aspen Institute. Friar lives in Marin County, California.[1]