Meet Founder + Principal Sarah Conners
Sarah Conners (formerly Starr) is a software and services executive with more than 25 years of experience in life sciences, eCommerce, consumer packaged goods, and advertising. She is known for 'going first' into new roles, verticals, products or organizational structures.
Sarah is proud to have been the first woman on the executive team at IntegriChain, where she led the Advisory, Customer Services, Implementation, Professional Services, and Systems Integration teams during nearly four years at the company, while it was in the Accel-KKR portfolio. At IntegriChain, Sarah often was first to roll out new organizational structures, or first to create special programs, like centers of excellence or 'black ops' special projects to surge innovation. She was first to lead teams to implement important new products in the life sciences software landscape, including Patient solutions and Gross-to-Net forecasting and accruals, both highly complex, and each with critical data security requirements. Sarah was (and still is) first to speak up when she felt that arriving at the best decision benefitted from robust dialogue and different points of view. That leadership style made giving advice in the form of a consultancy the next natural step. Sarah departed IntegriChain on great terms to establish White Dog Partners, but remained an investor in the company and one of its biggest fans.
IntegriChain's founders chose Sarah to join the executive team for her ability to look agnostically at business challenges, and to apply best practices that enable rapid scale to meet the ambitious goals that accompanied its tremendous expansion. During Sarah's time at IntegriChain the company grew from 100 employees in Philadelphia to 650 across the United States and in India. Sarah's own team grew from 16 to more than 220, and performed better than ever before during the unprecedented and unpredictable era of remote work during Covid-19.
Flexibility and versatility were the characteristics of IntegriChain executives, and so Sarah was responsible for IntegriChain's subscription revenue when she first joined and ran Client Services, then moved to lead Advisory, Implementations, and Systems Integrations divisions of the company, where she focused almost exclusively on achievement of critical one-time (1x) revenue goals that grew significantly year over year. Sarah was always at the table for IntegriChain's acquisition activity, helping the founders evaluate numerous potential deals. When two significant deals moved forward, Sarah led the diligence process on one acquisition (daVIZta) then integrated its workforce into the blended organization, and was an anchor for integration on another (Cumberland Life Sciences).
M&A activity had been a highlight of Sarah's career at eBay as well, where in addition to VP roles at its digital agency, she represented a buyer in the ultimate divestiture of the eCommerce division, named "Technology Deal of the Year" in 2015 ($250MM and greater) by M&A Magazine. Before eBay acquired GSI Commerce, Sarah drafted the meticulous scope and served as the lead VP for the digital agency's largest-ever services retainer for Kraft Foods. For Kraft, Sarah hand-picked more than 20 multichannel eCommerce experts to be the first-ever team to occupy a new eBay office in Herald Square.
Before the true advent of digital, Sarah worked in early user-experience design labs, and advertising agencies and PR firms. At a Philadelphia agency, she handled media relations and crisis responses for clients such as Wawa, where she managed situations including fuel pricing volatility after 9/11, DC sniper shootings, employee safety, and product recalls. At a political consulting firm in Pittsburgh, Sarah authored speeches for members of U.S. Congress, and wrote radio and TV spots, including one for which the agency rented a dog 'so the candidate would look more relatable.'
Prior to advertising, Sarah worked in journalism. She got her first job after college at a newspaper when an editor with an anger management problem threw a phone book at someone's head and that was the 'third strike' so to speak, creating a vacancy the same day she had her first interview. A copy editor got promoted, and Sarah took the freshly open copy desk spot, bypassing the typical path of slugging away at bridal announcements and obituaries for a few years. Forever an editor, Sarah has an annoying (or delightful, you decide) habit of correcting grammar, punctuation, and style in presentations, everyday signage, and advertising. Tip of the day: the designation of "M" to represent a dollar amount actually means a thousand, not a million. If you're speaking in terms of millions, use "MM." Please make a note of it.
White Dog Partners, based in Devon, Pennsylvania, is named for Sarah's golden retriever Bitsy, who serves as a constant reminder that every day can and should include humor, loyalty, and optimism.