OpenAI hires Ex-Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar as CFO

This week, OpenAI announced the hiring of former Nextdoor Chief Executive Officer Sarah Friar as its first Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Sarah Friar previously served as a CFO at the financial services company Square, currently sits on the Board of Walmart, and has also worked at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Salesforce. Her hiring was announced alongside the appointment of Kevin Weil as Chief Product Officer. Weil has prior experience working at Twitter and Meta.
These appointments followed the notable departures of several OpenAI executives, including co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who left in May, six months after being involved in Altman’s dismissal and subsequent rehiring as CEO.

During her time as CEO of Nextdoor Friar encouraged real estate agents to use the neighbourhood-based social media platform to generate leads.

The company, however, raised its prices on real estate advertisements under her tenure, drawing criticism from agents who told Inman in a 2019 article that they struggled to find leads through the platform.

At Inman Connect New York 2024, Friar urged agents to deepen their efforts to become more integrated into the communities they serve.