Sara Finley earned her undergraduate degree in 1982 from the University of Alabama and her J.D. in 1985 from Vanderbilt, where she was a Patrick Wilson Scholar. After graduating from Vanderbilt, Sara was an associate with Maynard, Cooper & Gale in Birmingham and an associate and partner with Kutak Rock in Atlanta before she left private practice to become the first in-house general counsel for Flexel, Inc., a packaging company based in Atlanta. This role solidified Sara’s commitment to continue her legal career in a business environment. She subsequently joined MedPartners, Inc. and became part of the executive team that transformed the troubled physician practice management company into a leading pharmacy services company that was re-named Caremark Rx.
In 2007, Caremark Rx merged with retail pharmacy giant CVS Pharmacy in a $21 billion deal that spurred innovation in pharmacy delivery, specialty pharmacy, retail-based medical services and medical management. Following the merger, Sara served as Senior Vice President & General Counsel for the pharmacy services division of the combined company before being promoted to Senior Vice President & General Counsel of CVS Caremark Corporation (now CVS Health). During this unique corporate evolution, Sara’s work included mergers and acquisitions, federal and state antitrust, health care and consumer protection investigations, and a host of other corporate, regulatory, health care, governance and litigation challenges.
After almost 20 years with CVS Caremark and predecessor entities, Sara retired from the company in 2015 and shifted her professional focus to corporate and nonprofit board service. She is a member of the board of directors for Studio Financial Holdings, Inc. and its affiliate Studio Bank, a Tennessee state-chartered bank, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Sondermind, a private mental health care company based in Denver. Her public company board service includes Tivity Health, Inc., sold in 2022 to private equity firm Stone Point Capital, and Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc., sold in 2022 to Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust.
Sara’s community service includes serving on the boards of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (for which she is chair-elect), the Center for Nonprofit Management and Leadership Nashville. In addition, she serves on the Vanderbilt Law School Board of Advisors, for which she was president from 2018 to 2020. Her previous nonprofit board service includes chairing the boards of The Land Trust for Tennessee and The Nashville Food Project and serving on the board of Alive Hospice.
In 2015, she endowed the Sara J. Finley Law and Business Scholarship to support law students seeking careers in corporate law. She has also supported the innovative Access2VLS program which provides need-based grants to entering J.D. students with a demonstrated need for tuition funding. In addition to her Board of Advisors role, she has also served on the Campaign Cabinet and has volunteered in various other capacities at the law school.