M.A. I-O Psychology
Northwestern ’13. Thesis on early-tenure attrition signals. Still cites it in onboarding redesigns.
About Sarah
People Ops First. Fractional Second. Yours for the Long Run.
Sarah studied industrial-organizational psychology at Northwestern, spent twelve years in-house at Stripe, Lyft, and a Series A startup as VP People, and went fractional in 2022 after watching too many founders rebuild the same broken HR program from scratch. If you want the calm one in the room, that’s her.
The Path
From Onboarding Decks to Operating Systems
People Ops Manager
Four years inside Stripe’s People team during the 200-to-1,200 ramp. Owned onboarding, HRIS, and the first multi-state expansion playbook.
VP People · Series A
Built the People function from scratch at a Series A infra startup. Stayed through the 5x headcount ramp, the IPO scare, and the first comp committee.
Fractional Founder
Earned the SHRM-SCP, founded Meridian People Partners, and quietly built a practice around early-stage founders who deserve grown-up HR.
Recognition & Memberships
Sarah is a member of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, and a SHRM Recognized Provider for continuing education credits. All work is conducted under her SHRM-SCP certification #SP-2017-4421 through Meridian People Partners LLC.
Builders’ Council Top 50 People Leaders
Industry recognition for fractional People practices serving Series Seed–B tech founders.
Clockless “Built With Care” Partner
Selected partner for Clockless’s concierge People program, serving early-stage tech founders.
Meridian People Partners
A small, deliberately low-roster practice. Sarah leads every engagement personally and is backed by a partner consultant and a specialist bench for the heavy lifts — multi-state payroll, comp benchmarking, and visa support.
Sarah Okafor
Lead Practitioner · Founder
Priya Anand
Partner Consultant
James Park
Onboarding Specialist
Maya Chen
Comp & Leveling
David Morales
Multi-state Payroll
How I Work
01
No Surprises
A real People program isn’t built in a sprint. Sarah’s monthly cadence, written remediations, and check-ins are paced for the year of work this actually takes.
02
Everything in One Portal
Each founder team gets a private dashboard with their program, roster, handbook, and billing — so nothing lives in a lost Notion page or a forgotten Slack DM.
03
Operator’s Eye for Detail
Sarah reads the offer letter, the FLSA classification, and the state notice list herself. You get a plain-English summary before you sign anything off.
Let’s Talk About Your People Program
Whether you’re pre-Series-A or about to cross 50 employees, it starts with a conversation.
Book an Intro Call