Mac Riley, center, son of Square CFO Sarah Friar, rings a ceremonial bell as the Square IPO begins trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 2015. Friar has left Square to join Nextdoor as CEO.
Photo: Richard drew / Associated Press 2015
By Selina Wang
San Francisco Chronicle
10-Oct-2018
Square CFO Sarah Friar steps down to join Nextdoor as CEO
Sarah Friar, the chief financial officer of Square, is leaving the electronic payments company to become chief executive officer of Nextdoor, a social network for local neighborhoods. Square shares declined as much as 9 percent in extended trading Wednesday.
David Viniar, Square’s lead independent director and a former Goldman Sachs financial chief, will lead the search for Friar’s successor, the San Francisco company said. Friar will stay at Square into December. Nextdoor is also headquartered in San Francisco.
A longtime Goldman Sachs analyst, Friar joined Square as CFO in 2012 when she was an executive at Salesforce.com. Her hiring received applause from analysts and investors, who saw her as a driver of growth and stability at Square, whose CEO, Jack Dorsey, serves in the same role at Twitter. The company, which held its initial public offering in November 2015, has more than doubled in value over the past year as it topped Wall Street estimates.
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Kate Rooney
CNBC
OCT 10 2018 • 4:09 PM EDT
Square CFO Sarah Friar to step down, stock falls
KEY POINTS
Square’s chief financial officer Sarah Friar will step down, and take a job as the CEO of social network Nextdoor, the company announced Wednesday.
“I’m saddened by the news,” Square CEO Jack Dorsey said in note to employees, which he posted on Twitter.
Shares of the fintech company dropped as much as 8 percent in after-hours trading.
Payment company Square’s chief financial officer Sarah Friar will step down and take a job as CEO of Nextdoor, the company announced Wednesday.
Shares of the fintech company, run by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, dropped as much as 8 percent in after-hour trading.
“I’m saddened by the news,” Square CEO Jack Dorsey said in note to employees. “I was unrealistically expecting to be working with Sarah well into our late 90s (swapping the standup tables for rocking chairs). Unrealistic because I knew of Sarah’s lifelong ambition to run her own company.”
The current CEO of Nextdoor, a social network for local neighborhoods founded in 2010, announced plans to step down from his role after almost eight years Wednesday.
Friar helped take Square public in 2015, and build “a growing ecosystem of businesses that will scale into the future,” Dorsey said in a press release.
“Sarah leaves us having established a culture of entrepreneurship and discipline across the entire company. She has been an amazing leader, partner, and friend, and we are grateful for all she’s done for Square,” the CEO said.
