Partner & Head of Finance + Operations, Summer Friday
Great creative work runs on a well‑run business.
Sarah Roberts is a CPA and Partner at Summer Friday, a boutique marketing agency. She keeps the business side running, from finance and operations to HR and legal, so the creative and client teams can do their best work.
April 2020Summer Friday launched in a matter of days
Four partnersWho own and run the agency together
14 statesFully remote, boutique team
CPALicensed since March 2013
A steady hand behind the scenes01
The person behind the numbers
From agency CFO to co-founder.
Finance has been part of Sarah's path since her first jobs in banking, which she worked while in high school and college. In 2007, she joined DRUM Agency, a full-service advertising shop, and spent nearly 13 years there, rising through positions of increasing responsibility as the agency grew organically and through mergers and acquisitions. She earned her CPA license in March 2013 along the way.
Under her financial leadership, DRUM acquired three companies and launched three more as part of its growth, revenue grew 500% over ten years, and staff expanded to 160 people across three states. She led financial planning and reporting, managed those M&A transactions from due diligence through integration, ran HR and recruiting, negotiated vendor and client contracts, and sat on the agency's Executive Leadership team and Board of Directors.
When DRUM closed abruptly in March 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, Sarah and three partners made a fast decision: launch a new agency to keep supporting the clients and staff left in limbo. Summer Friday came together in a matter of days, ran fully remote from the start, and it was another 14 months before Sarah and her partners were able to meet in person for the first time.
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“Our culture is our highest priority, and our people are our most valuable assets.”
A PEOPLE-FIRST POINT OF VIEW
Work, with room to do it well
Small by choice. Built to work together.
Summer Friday is a boutique marketing agency co-founded in April 2020 by Sarah and her partners. It is fully remote, with team members in 14 states, and it takes on strategy, brand and campaign work for clients that need it done well.
Sarah manages Summer Friday's financial accounts to keep operations running efficiently, and oversees the tools, resources, and platforms the team needs to run successful client campaigns. She also leads recruitment and team retention for a boutique, remote-first team spread across 14 states.
As a Partner, she's one of four people who own and run Summer Friday, working alongside Rob Simone, Michael Cruz, and Alicia Wiedemann. Culture and people come first: "Our culture is our highest priority, and our people are our most valuable assets." And the agency is staying intentionally boutique: "Our goal is not to be a huge agency. It would be impossible to retain the culture and values we've committed to."
“We don’t waste our energy on opportunities that don’t feel like the ideal fit for Summer Friday.”
A few chapters in a career spent helping ambitious teams grow.
2021 – Present
Member of Chief
The private professional network for women executives.
Apr 2020 — Present
Partner & Head of Finance + Operations, Summer Friday
Co-founded the agency in a matter of days after her previous agency closed during the pandemic; has helped build a boutique, remote-first team across 14 states.
May 2007 — Mar 2020
CFO, DRUM Agency
Rose through the agency over 13 years as it grew organically and through M&A, acquiring three companies and launching three more. As CFO, drove 500% revenue growth over ten years and 160 staff across three states; earned her CPA license in March 2013.
A little more about the people, decisions and day-to-day behind the work.
01What does a Head of Finance + Operations actually do at a marketing agency?
Everything from financial planning and reporting to HR, recruiting, contract negotiation, and making sure the team has the right tools and systems to run client work smoothly.
02How do you launch a marketing agency in a matter of days?
Summer Friday started in April 2020, when DRUM Agency closed abruptly and its four partners chose to keep supporting its clients and staff. The agency was up and running remotely within days, and the partners did not meet in person for another 14 months.
03Why does Summer Friday stay a boutique agency?
Culture and people come first. As Sarah puts it, the goal is not to be a huge agency, because it would be impossible to retain the culture and values the team has committed to. Summer Friday is remote-first, with team members across 14 states.
04What did you learn from acquiring three companies and launching three more?
Each deal taught Sarah something new, and she learned more with every one. Evaluating an agency to acquire or start up takes a lot of diligence. The red flags she watches for are revenue concentrated in a few clients, a business that depends on key people, and unclear contracts or ownership of the work. What builds her confidence is long-tenured client relationships, steady margins and utilization, and financials that are clean and on time. When digging deeper, she asks what happens if the top client leaves, who clients actually call when they need something, and which revenue is one-time and which is recurring.
05How is Summer Friday rolling out AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Replit?
Summer Friday strongly encourages the team to dive into every tool the company has, within company and client guidelines, to see how far they can push their productivity and creativity. To support that, the agency partnered with an outside company to build AI governance guidelines and to run a training program across the team: four core ChatGPT sessions, a creative-specific session, and a Claude session. It is also building workflow automations in tools like Wrike and Adobe to help the team work more efficiently.
Away from the spreadsheets
Home is where her people are.
Outside the agency, Sarah lives in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, where she was born and raised, with her husband and their two daughters. She enjoys golfing, traveling, and juggling her girls' sporting events.
Her favorite team, wherever the weekend takes them.
A good conversation starts somewhere
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