The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
#WhatStartsHere: Alisha Sare
08.23.2020 | Women's Basketball
The former Women's Basketball standout has had a successful career in advertising and technology.
As a member of one of the most successful teams in Texas Women's Basketball history, former Longhorn guard Alisha Sare (1999-2003) understands what can be achieved through dedication and hard work.
In 2003, Sare and the Longhorns rode a nation-leading 17-game winning streak into the Final Four and pushed a Diana Taurasi-led Connecticut team to the brink, eventually falling 71-69 to a Huskies squad that would win the championship for the third time in four years. That season was the culmination of four years of growth for Sare and the Longhorns, building trust and unity along the way.
"The biggest difference in that year, if you look at the talent on the paper, it was the stuff you couldn't see – like the chemistry and the work-ethic of the team, the stuff that doesn't show up on the stats or in the paper," Sare recalled. "If you look at the makeup of our group, we didn't have the tallest individuals or the fastest, we weren't these massive, fast athletes. We were probably one of the most cohesive teams in the nation. We were really smart and really talented in very unique ways."
These lessons in team building and unity have aided Sare in her career in brand building and marketing in both the advertising and technology industries.
Sare recently worked in Global Business Marketing for Facebook, serving as the head of business success and storytelling in which she led a team whose tasks included developing Facebook and Instagram's best in class success stories, case studies videos and VR experiences, as well as generating all speechwriting content for Facebook's business executives and sales leaders.
Her path to Facebook began that spring of 2003 when she secured an internship with Austin advertising agency GSD&M, thanks in part to some support from legendary head coach Jody Conradt.
After graduating in the in the fall of 2002 with a degree in communications studies and business foundations, Sare continued taking courses during the basketball season while seeking out potential career opportunities.
Conradt helped connect her with the principals at GSD&M and from there Sare was off and running, creating relationships that helped her step right into a full-time position in town with another agency, McGarrah Jesse, once the semester ended.
"It was really a blissful, magical time for me," Sare said. "I already had a gig lined up and was able to stay in Austin and felt very fortunate for that."
During the next 10 years with McGarrah Jessee, Sare worked on accounts for clients like Whataburger, Stubb's, Sweet Leaf Tea and Haggar Clothing, developing consumer and B2B marketing strategies that encompassed everything from digital, mobile, broadcast and print platforms to local store marketing, events and promotions. Her industry acumen grew, and her career was flourishing, but something seemed a bit off.
"I kind of had that epiphany of, I am born and raised a Texas girl, went to the most prestigious school in Texas and started working in my first job for 10 years right down the street from my university," Sare said. "The bubble got really small, even as big as Texas is, and that's when I decided I need a change."
Sare set her sights on San Francisco, moving to the Bay Area and working with tech brands from the agency side with several brands, including Google. She oversaw campaign developments for the launch of Google Fiber and its expansion into Kansas City, Provo and Austin, supervised the production of multiple international documentary films covering the small businesses utilization of Google Analytics for Google Small and Medium Business (SMB), and served as the Group Account Director for Google's B2B launch for mobile search adaptation targeted at the nation's top 20 chief marketing officers.
The year 2014 proved to be a pivotal one for Sare. In May, she married Kelley Rochna, whom she had met while they were account managers at McGarrah Jessee back in Austin. The couple was thriving, finding success and happiness both personally and professionally. But, in August, tragedy struck when Sare's father died in a motorcycle accident. With several life-altering events occurring in a short period of time, Sare found herself at a crossroads.
"Coming off the heels of that roller coaster of a year, I ended up leaving my job and taking some time off," Sare said. "When I kind of refocused and pulled myself up by the bootstraps three months later, I was like, 'I think I'm done with the advertising industry, but I'm kind of into this tech thing.'"
Her agency work had caught the attention of several companies in the tech industry, including Facebook, who brought Sare on board in March 2015.
"Facebook really meant a lot to me at that time, it was how I stayed connected with everybody through the trauma and tragedy of my dad's accident," Sare said. "I ended up landing a job at Facebook, and I was there for five years and really loved it. I went in at a really special time."
Working outside the agency environment for the first time in her career, Sare helped developed process and protocols for Facebook that led to more than 2,000 global case studies being generated each year. In addition, Sare served as the program leader and executive project manager for Facebook CRO David Fischer's podcast Three and a Half Degrees: The Power of Connection, winning AdWeek's award for Best Entrepreneurial Podcast of 2019.
In 2018, Sare and Rochna began looking to purchasing a home in the Bay Area, only to be met with the obstacles that can occur in real estate.
"Eventually I said, 'I'm sick of this, we own a home in Texas, why don't we go remodel that and live comfortably in Austin," Sare said.
With much of her team located in Los Angeles, New York and Canada, and a Facebook office already located in Austin, where they had purchased a home in 2009, it was a fairly smooth move. After a brief discussion with her manager and the Human Resources team, she was on her way back to Texas.
In Austin, she was able to reconnect with friends and colleagues and Longhorns basketball. She became a season ticketholder and began attending games and chatting with Conradt.
"(Coach Conradt) has that innate ability to connect with people and find a connection and a warmth people that is just so real," Sare said. "I don't think that ever changed from recruiting, through playing for her, to now you know, almost 20 years post-graduation. She's just the real deal.
"Don't get me wrong, she's definitely a tough cookie, but she was an incredible coach of both the physical and mental aspects of the game. I think that helped build a lot of character for me and a thick skin for the real world, which I'm extremely thankful for."
When the COVID-19 pandemic began shutting down office spaces in March, Sare took a sabbatical from Facebook and in May elected to leave the company to take time off and seek out a new path.
She and Rochna are currently living with their dog on her brother-in-law's 50-acre farm on Orcas Island, located in the San Juan archipelago in the northwest corner of Washington state.
"I have the experience in advertising and in tech and the experience across a number of different brands," Sare said. "But now I'm looking to land something more in the sweet spot of a passion industry; maybe something in sports, something to do with outdoors and camping, maybe something to do with education with travel. My career has enough robust experience to open unexpected doors, and that's exciting."