About Sarah Finch
Sarah Finch has over two decades experience as a facilitator, coach and speaker helping leaders at all levels be successful.
Whether she is working with a leader one-on-one, facilitating small group programs or delivering her stories and expertise from a big event stage, Sarah has helped thousands of leaders be more successful. Her group programs range from offering short workshops, to multi-day leadership development programs, as well as facilitating executive team offsites for development or strategic planning. Over the past years she has become as adept at delivering all of her services through a virtual platform as she is in the room.
Sarah's client list over her career encompasses leaders from all industries including Fortune 500 business, non-profits, and government agencies. She has worked with Deloitte, GE Healthcare, McKinsey, Major League Baseball, Kraft, Farmer’s Insurance, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Abbott Labs, Cisco, Allstate, Abbvie, Accenture, Harley Davidson, Feeding America, the IRS and many others. She has experience working with many small and mid-size companies owned by Private Equity as well, and understands some of the unique needs and challenges of those leaders and executive teams.
Prior to forming her own leadership development practice, Sarah was fortunate to work with a number of high-profile organizations. She spent several years with Vista Consulting Group (VCG) – the arm of Vista Equity Partners that supports the 50+ software and technology companies in the Vista portfolio. With VCG she led the year-long cohort-based, High Potential Leadership Program for mid to senior technology leaders, worked with C-Suite teams to increase clarity of vision and team success, and consulted with HR leaders on developing and evaluating their transforming culture through values, behaviors and outcomes. While with VCG, Sarah was trained in and utilized integrated Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage and Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Partners in Leadership’s The Oz Principle. She still applies those concepts with her clients today.
Sarah also worked with Y-USA, the national resource office of the YMCA, developing non-profit leaders from front line to C-Suite as well as YMCA Boards. She focused on building leadership skills and teams through customized leadership competencies, and shaping cultures at YMCA’s to align with a newly revamped brand and voice. In one of her more fun roles, she was fortunate to spend seven years as the Director of Learning with Second City Works, the corporate arm of the Second City Theatre, developing and increasing their corporate training programs utilizing improv techniques. She loves to bring her background in theatre and improv into the works she does with her clients.
As an executive coach, she has a decade of experience working with leaders from early career to C-Suite in support of their individual development, specific challenges, and career path. Sarah is very comfortable incorporating assessments, including leadership 360s and individual growth tools around communication and emotional intelligence, into her coaching approach to allow for even deeper self-understanding and feedback for the leader. Sarah is also an engaging and accomplished keynote speaker having spoken from the main stage to audiences from hundreds to thousands on leadership related topics.
Sarah is a certified provider and coach for EQi 2.0 and TruScore 360s. She is also honored to be a Business Faculty member at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management where she teaches Organizational Communication and facilitates corporate programs with their Center for Leadership.
Sarah holds a BS from Northwestern University’s School of Speech and an MA from New York University’s School of Education.