Director of Program Operations,
firsthand
Sadia was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. She started her career in management consulting with Bain & Co. (Southern Africa and the Middle East) before moving to the US to pursue her MBA at Wharton. At Wharton, she majored in Operations and Entrepreneurship & Innovation and was actively involved in starting and hosting the #OurWharton podcast, was an active contributor to the Wharton African Student Association and was a teaching assistant to Professor Stefanie Creary’s Diversity in Organizations class. Post-graduating, Sadia joined Stellar Health, a value-based care healthcare startup in NYC, on their Growth team. In search of a mission she was passionate about and joining a startup earlier in their journey, Sadia joined firsthand (a mental health startup focused on the Medicaid market) as Director of Program Operations in Feb 2022 as one of their early hires. Sadia also founded the Tariro Foundation – an NGO focused on the holistic development of young black South African girls through Education, Entrepreneurship and Personal & Leadership Development. She loves discovering new consumer brands (especially from parts of the world she calls home!), finding new artists and is (still) trying to learn French. In her spare time, she is usually thinking about how to democratize access to quality healthcare, how to increase investment capital to entrepreneurs back in Africa and how to build human connection!