Sara received a Masters degree from the University of North Carolina, Go Heels, in Educational Media and Instructional Design and started her career teaching in an inner city magnet program in Raleigh, NC. She created the curriculum for a new program in video production and spent lots of time working in the new magnet program to help excite and inspire inner city youth on what is possible.

Shifting gears, she moved to Baltimore, MD where she was told there was no reciprocity between NC and MD so she wasn’t allowed to continue teaching. Having to reinvent her career path, she went to work for Liberty Medical Center as a training specialist at this inner city hospital. She created numerous training programs and videos, including an overall orientation video for the hospital.

Making one last change in 1989, she went to work for a software development company as their first training specialist. She was placed in an office and that was that. She immediately created an orientation and onboarding program and began meeting with managers to determine their training needs. Having a strong focus on employee development, she became their first choice to move into a leadership role in the newly formed Human Resources Department. Starting as the human resources manager, she created policies and procedures, formalized job descriptions, compensation structures, employee and management development programs, and recruiting and hiring practices.

She remained in leadership as the company navigated through numerous acquisitions. Through her strong focus on employee and organization development, she worked with CEO’s to successfully integrate the organization through five corporate leadership changes. She led the human resources department through all changes and helped spearhead employee and corporate growth. The company grew in size during Sara’s tenure from around 125 employees to over 650. She partnered with different CEO’s during her tenure and earned a seat at the corporate leadership table. It is her firm belief that human resources has a critical role in corporate growth and leadership and through partnering with business leaders can improve bottom line results as well as employee and customer satisfaction. She remained in the organization for 21 years until she decided to retire and head back to NC, where she currently works out daily, serves on PTA and volunteer boards and drives her daughters to numerous activities.

Sara is very excited to be working with Ben and CEOIQ to create meaningful and relevant training to help inform and inspire organizations to reach their full potential. She currently lives in Raleigh NC with her husband and two active teenage daughters. She can be reached at [email protected].