Square Hires Former Salesforce SVP Sarah Friar As CFO, Now Processes $6 Billion In Annual Payments

Mobile payment service Square today announced that it has hired Sarah Friar as its new Chief Financial Officer. Until now, Friar was the Senior Vice President for finance and strategy at Salesforce.com. Before joining Salesforce, Friar worked at Goldman Sachs in corporate finance, M&A and equity research, as well as at McKinsey in London and South Africa.

Square says this new hire and its various other VP-level hires earlier this year should help it grow its product offerings and prepare for its international expansion “later this year.”

In its announcement of Friar’s hire, Square also noted that it now processes “over $6 billion in payments on an annualized basis.” In addition, Square claims that “over 1 million individuals and businesses are able to accept credit cards with Square.”

Despite the hype that still surrounds it, Square faced a few challenges in recent month. There have been, for example, persistent rumors about how the work environment at Square isn’t necessarily the best. That, apparently, didn’t scare away Friar, but given the competitive hiring environment in Silicon Valley, those rumors aren’t going to make hiring easier for Square. The company currently has around 300 employees (up from just 80 a year ago).

There has also been some talk about how Apple’s new Passport feature in the upcoming iOS 6 release could be a prelude to a full mobile payments solution that could take the wind out of startups like Square and others.