Sara Hicks — Official Biography

Sara Hicks is a technology founder, product leader, executive coach, and author with more than 20 years of experience building products, companies, and teams from zero to one and beyond.

She is the founder and CEO of HappyHQ, the AI workspace for everyday work, and a founding partner and executive coach at The Intentional Organization. She is also the co-author of The Intentional Organization: A Leadership and Management Guide.

Today, Sara coaches startup founders, CEOs, and product, design, and technology executives navigating company building, growth, leadership transitions, organizational change, and acquisitions.

As the co-founder and former CEO of venture-backed Reaction Commerce, she guided the vision for creating a modern, open and real-time solution designed for today’s commerce experiences. She successfully led Reaction Commerce from founding to acquisition by Mailchimp in April 2020, eventually becoming the Chief Product Officer and Product Advisor of Mailchimp until February 2024.

Prior to co-founding Reaction Commerce, Sara worked her way up through the technology web managing consumer and merchant products (Geocities, Yahoo! Store, IAC), leading teams responsible for interface design, user experience, content development and product strategy (Etsy, Media Temple) and becoming an ecommerce marketplace CEO (Science). She’s helped to scale teams and build products for massive marketplaces and platforms that generate billions of dollars in transactions, touch millions of online shoppers, and impact hundreds of thousands of sellers and businesses.

As a strategic advisor and mentor to tech startups, Sara is equal parts right-brain innovator and left-brain analyzer. She resides in Los Angeles, CA, and when she’s not on her bike, yoga mat or surfboard, she is fervently exploring emerging technologies, simple designs, beautiful interfaces, life-changing communication and creative solutions from outside-the-box people.

For speaking, podcast, and press requests, visit media inquiries. For more about my approach to leadership and coaching, see About Sara Hicks and executive coaching.