I’m a creative strategist and organizational leader with more than 30 years of experience helping people and institutions navigate growth, change, and reinvention.
Meet Sarah.
ABOUT
My work has taken me across restaurants, retail, media, museums, universities, public spaces, start-ups and nonprofits.
The path has never been linear, but each chapter has strengthened the same instinct: find clarity in complexity, and turn insight into movement.
Developed across disciplines.
Advertising taught me how to generate ideas, write copy, and pitch a concept. Coffee taught me how to lead people, build systems, and make decisions in real time.
Museums, parks, and nonprofits gave me places to apply those skills—raising money, building teams, navigating change, and creating mission-driven experiences.
Not one to be contained, I’m interested in finding the space in between. Taking inspiration from other industries, I make connections and see possibilities others may miss.
I have always thrived in complex and layered environments—allowing curiosity to drive my direction, connecting people, places, and ideas.
Where curiosity leads.
Where curiosity leads.
Proof of Concept
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
For leaders navigating growth, complexity, and crisis.
At Outside The Lens, I’ve led significant growth and professionalization—growing revenue, expanding the team, strengthening systems, and creating clearer opportunities for people to lead.
At Forever Balboa Park, I led advancement, visitor services, and communications through a merger, a two-year leadership gap, the pandemic, and a major public-private capital initiative for the Balboa Park Botanical Building & Gardens.
STRATEGIC POSITIONING
Big ideas and creative direction that inspire people to take notice.
Across arts, education, civic, and commercial organizations, I’ve led full rebrands for Outside The Lens and Forever Balboa Park, a Guinness World Records® campaign for Pacific Ridge School, and the world premiere of a National Geographic film at UC San Diego.
The work has spanned big-picture thinking, creative direction, design acumen, and carrying ideas from concept through launch.
EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Gathering that creates a feeling of purpose and belonging.
I created Culture & Cocktails at the San Diego Museum of Art, Voice Out at Outside The Lens, and the sPARK Awards at Forever Balboa Park.
Culture & Cocktails continues after more than two decades; Voice Out grew from 118 youth artists to 200+ submissions and 300+ attendees by year three. Strategic planning, retreats, and workshops move leaders and teams from brainstorm to buy-in.
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
Living Artfully
A life rooted in belonging, beauty, creativity, and freedom.
I live in San Diego with my husband—and our twin sons when they come home to roost between college and what lies beyond.
Our house has a garden with such a bounty of tomatoes, figs and kumquats that we now “process our produce” and own a dehydrator. I make jam and pickles when I’m not juicing the citrus from our tiny backyard orchard.
Growing up in suburban Minneapolis, I was raised in homes filled with art and unconventional thinking. My mother was an artist, a nomad, an inveterate maker. My father was the steady foundation for me and my sister. I studied journalism and gender studies at UW–Madison in the early nineties—a dynamic time to discover that the personal and political are one and the same. Through love and a quest for salty air sunsets, I moved to San Diego in 2000. Over time, it’s become the place I call home.
And now I, too, am a maker. Writing, photography, cooking and collaging are my current anchors. I travel when I can, and in my mind when I can't—soaking up colors, sounds, textures, and the kind of details that show up for me later. Saturday mornings belong to the farmers market, and every morning belongs to coffee. I believe in long lunches, hot springs and saunas, the power of friendship, and the critical need for common sense.
What are you navigating?
Explore the ways strategic counsel supports and expands your capacity as a leader.