ATLANTA, March 29, 2021 — Operation HOPE, the nation’s largest non-profit dedicated to financial empowerment for underserved communities, today announced that Sarah Friar, Chief Executive Officer of Nextdoor, the neighborhood app, has joined its Global Board of Advisors. An accomplished business leader, Ms. Friar brings a wealth of experience helping small businesses leverage the neighborhood to scale up.
Nextdoor is where neighbors go to plug into the neighborhoods that matter to them. Neighbors turn daily to Nextdoor to get the local perspective from those that live in the neighborhoods — neighbors, local businesses and trusted public agencies. Prior to Nextdoor, Ms. Friar served as Chief Financial Officer at Square. Under Ms. Friar’s leadership, the company launched its initial public offering in 2015 and added $30Bn in market cap.
Before her tenure at Square, Friar served as Senior Vice President of Finance & Strategy at Salesforce. Ms. Friar also held executive roles at Goldman Sachs, as well as leadership positions at McKinsey in both London and South Africa. A seasoned board member, Ms. Friar currently sits on the boards of Walmart and Slack. She is also a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Finance Leaders Fellowship Program, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and co-founder of Ladies Who Launch, a network that mentors and inspires women entrepreneurs and business owners.
“Sarah Friar has proven to be an amazing businesswoman who is on the right side of history,” said John Hope Bryant, Founder and CEO of Operation HOPE. “Her bold leadership and commitment to equity & inclusion speak to her moral character, her integrity, and her willingness to make tough business decisions. She possesses a rare, high emotional intelligence that makes her perfect for Operation HOPE’s Board.”
Ms. Friar joins a distinguished Board that consists of some of the country’s top executives in business, banking and the non-profit and NGO sector. HOPE Global Advisory Board members provide guidance and support for Operation HOPE in its commitment to provide financial literacy education and economic empowerment for individuals and small business owners living in under-served communities. In October 2020, John Hope Bryant was announced to the Nextdoor Board of Directors.
“Operation HOPE is driving important changes within our neighborhoods and empowering entrepreneurs at the local level,” Ms. Friar said. “I am impressed by how John and his team are committed to building community and look forward to working alongside this great group of advisors to help more small businesses thrive.”
Ms. Friar grew up in Northern Ireland and 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. She holds an honorary doctorate from Ulster University and in 2019 was granted an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II for services to entrepreneurship.
About Operation HOPE
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to “silver rights” with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through our community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. Project 5117 is our multi-year four-pronged approach to combating economic inequality that aims to improve financial literacy, increase business role models and business internships for youth in underserved communities, and stabilize the American dream by boosting FICO scores. Operation HOPE recently received its seventh consecutive 4-star charity rating for fiscal management and commitment to transparency and accountability by the prestigious non-profit evaluator, Charity Navigator.
For more information: www.OperationHOPE.org. Follow Operation HOPE on Twitter and Facebook @operationhope
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https://operationhope.org/
SOURCE Operation HOPE
