Slack announced that it has added Square CFO Sarah Friar, the CFO of payments company Square, as its first independent board member, according to Recode.
This makes Friar the company’s first female director. Slackâs founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield said Friarâs background in enterprise and finance was the main reason she was hired.
Friar has previously held positions like senior VP of finance and strategy at Salesforce, managing director at Goldman Sachs, and business analyst at McKinsey & Company.
âAs we get larger and have more shareholders, we have obviously wanted to increase governance,â said Butterfield. âWhile there has been a strong bias that our first independent director be a woman, Sarahâs background in banking, research, enterprise software, international growth and expansion, operational management in high growth environments and strategic finance is what makes her an ideal person to guide Slack to the next level.â
While Recode said that Friar could be helpful if and when Slack decides to goes public, Butterfield denied that the company would be taking steps in that direction this year.
Currently, Slackâs board consists of Butterfield and three of his venture investors: Accelâs Andrew Braccia, John OâFarrell of Andreessen Horowitz, and Social + Capitalâs Mamoon Hammid.
Friarâs addition to Slackâs board comes at a time when the company is facing competition from tech giants like Microsoft. Microsoft recently launched the final version of Microsoft Teams, a chat tool that shares similar features with Slack. Microsoft is looking to fade Slack out with features like a cleaner user interface and integration of the company’s Office 365 package. In November 2016, Slackâs former CMO Bill Mecaitis, who was with the company since November 2014, quiety stepped down.
Feature photo via Recode