Sarah Riley

Evaluator
DISC Type : dsc

Chief Financial Officer at dbt Labs

San Francisco, California, United States

Overview

Sarah Riley is the Chief Financial Officer at dbt Labs, specializing in scaling high-growth SaaS companies for public offerings. Drawing on her experience at Zoom, Okta, and Salesforce, she builds world-class finance and data teams. She holds a B. S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

Sarah played a key role in scaling Zoom from a few hundred million to a multi-billion dollar company in preparation for its successful 2019 IPO.

Personality Overview

Hard To Convince

Quality Focused

Thorough Evaluator

They are not very likely to become strong advocates of your product or service  They have a unique set of diverse traits where they are decisive and methodical but can sometimes be extra cautious and skeptical They focus on the results, but can still be quite procedural and analytical about how to get there

Topics They Care About

Scaling SaaS Companies
Her career is defined by guiding high-growth SaaS companies like Zoom, Okta, and dbt Labs through rapid scaling phases toward IPO and beyond.
IPO Readiness
She has direct, hands-on experience leading finance strategy for the successful IPOs at both Okta (2017) and Zoom (2019), a core part of her current role.
Open Data Infrastructure
Actively promotes the dbt Labs and Fivetran merger as creating a new standard for open, reliable, and interoperable data infrastructure.

Media Appearances

Sarah has no verified media appearances

Work History

6-2024
Chief Financial Officer at dbt Labs
2-2023 - 6-2024
VP, Head of Finance & Strategy at dbt Labs
1-2022 - 2-2023
Sr. Director, Head of Finance & Strategy at dbt Labs
1-2021 - 8-2024
Advisor at Daydream
11-2020 - 1-2022
Director, Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis at Zoom

Education

2009 - 2013
B.S. Business Administration from University of Southern California
2012 - 2012
Bachelor of Science (B.S.) from University of St.Gallen

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 9 Location : San Francisco, California, United States Job Level : Leadership Designation : Chief Financial Officer at dbt Labs
URL has been copied!

Insights For Selling To Sarah

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Keep a professional, business-like approach; especially if you tend to get informal quickly
  • Use phrases like ‘the ROI of this’, ‘X% more’ etc.
  • Be prepared for comments or questions that are critical of your product or your claims

DONT's

  • Don’t focus on relationship, focus purely on the merit of your product
  • Avoid making strong statements, instead invite them to agree with you by asking them questions
  • Don’t nudge them to do something by using the logic that others have done the same

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Sarah is

  • ROI matters the most to them, followed by process and finally proof of results
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Sarah

  • They might hesitate a little, but will go ahead and say no when necessary (or asked)

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Sarah move?

  • They are unlikely to move very fast, especially when it comes to new products or services
  • Can Sarah take some risk or not?

  • They have relatively low risk-appetite and are not very likely to go for something unproven and risky

You And Sarah

Personality Compatibility


Other dbt Labs Employees

Explore more public profiles from related professionals at the same organization.

More Profiles

Discover additional public profiles from our index.

Search more profiles

Looking for someone else? Search here for anyone.

Or visit Humantic AI to know more.