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Sarah Tucker-Ray

Sarah Tucker-Ray

Helps government leaders deliver better outcomes for the public, including improved operations, enhanced customer experience, and inclusive economic growth

Sarah advises leaders in government, non-profits, and the private sector to develop new strategies and improve operations. She specializes in helping governments better deliver services through customer-experience and design approaches and promote economic growth through strategic investment. She has worked in the United States across federal, state, and local levels and with national governments globally.

Sarah founded McKinsey’s public sector customer experience forum and regularly hosts workshops to bring the best of private-sector innovation to governments. She supports government leaders to grow the economy and improve public–private engagement, which often includes considerations of the most effective use of infrastructure investment, regulation, incentives, and other tools.

Examples of Sarah’s recent client work include the following:

  • supporting multiple state and national governments on operations transformations, including for infrastructure delivery and frontline service delivery
  • helping numerous US states and national governments with economic-development work, including designing plans focused on housing and infrastructure
  • working with local governments on housing, transportation, and economic-opportunity issues
  • improving internal operations, including significant reductions in time to hire and better delivery of shared services, for federal agencies
  • supporting leading private-sector companies on customer-experience and human-centered-design issues
  • designing strategy-development initiatives for major nongovernmental organizations, including major think tanks and foundations

Prior to joining McKinsey, Sarah worked in federal and local governments in roles focused on promoting economic opportunity and improving government operations.

In 2014, Next City named Sarah a Vanguard, an honor awarded to 40 urban leaders across the United States working to improve cities. Sarah serves on the board of a community-development financial institution in Memphis, Tennessee; was the finance chair and a founding board member for a public charter school in Brooklyn, New York; and has consulted with not-for-profit organizations on economic development in Trenton, New Jersey, Memphis, Tennessee, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Washington, DC.

Published work

Great expectations: How US government agencies can meet public demand for better service,” McKinsey & Company, December 2023

How US government leaders can deliver a better customer experience,” McKinsey & Company, June 2023

Governments can deliver exceptional customer experiences—here’s how,” McKinsey & Company, November 2022

The call to rethink government customer experience,” McKinsey & Company, July 2022

Reimagining US federal work for the postpandemic world,” McKinsey & Company, April 2021

Transforming the US federal government’s approach to hiring digital talent,” McKinsey & Company, September 2020

Lessons for US governors and mayors planning a second term,” McKinsey & Company, August 2020

COVID-19: Reopening federal agency operations and reimagining a next normal,” McKinsey & Company, June 2020

Reopening US state government operations on a path to the next normal,” McKinsey & Company, May 2020

COVID-19: How American states can manage the surge in unemployment services,” McKinsey & Company, March 2020

How state and local governments win at attracting companies,” McKinsey & Company, September 2019

How to lead a successful government transition,” McKinsey & Company, November 2018

Improving public safety through customer experience at the National Weather Service,” McKinsey & Company, May 2017

Avoiding the seven deadly sins of customer-experience transformations,” McKinsey & Company, April 2017

Education

Princeton University
MPA

Tulane University
BA, political science (Truman Scholar)