Sarah Shipley

Sarah is an award-winning consultant with a love for all things civic. In 2008, she left K Street for KC and has not looked back.

With over 20 years of experience in marketing, communications and public relations, she finds product/market fit for a number of high-profile clients and leads marketing strategy and public outreach efforts on many education and infrastructure projects. She has a flair for community engagement, and her creative vision has helped create consensus and understanding on even the most controversial projects.

She started her career in DC working for the League of American Bicyclists and Rails to Trails Conservancy. She has worked internationally as the Marketing Director for the USO in Stuttgart Germany, serving the needs of our armed forces.

In 2010, she founded Shipley Communications, LLC. a consultancy that focuses on marketing, fundraising, crisis communications and strategy. She loves to create efficiencies and income streams for startups and nonprofits. She co-founded BikeWalkKC, and Kansas City B-cycle, the country's first, private, bike sharing system, owned and operated by a nonprofit. She was on the founding team of Neighbor.ly, which won the Points of Light Civic Accelerator Prize. She has earned numerous awards for marketing, fundraising and communications, namely the Tour de Bier KC, and Women’s Bike Summit.

Her latest venture, Off-Kilta Matilda™ started with a book, and will become an ecosystem fueled by a well-defined strong characters to help parents, teachers and companies encourage girls (and boys) to have fun, learn STEM and invest in the next workforce with measurable STEM-focused ecosystem activities.

Sarah embraces entrepreneurism. She completed the Kauffman FastTrac™ Growth Venture Program sponsored by MoDot and the MoDot Advanced Contractor Training. A lifelong learner, she has earned degrees from Bradley University (BS), the University of Oklahoma (MA), and a MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2017, she was named a 2017 Top Connector in KC by the Kauffman Foundation and is Chairwoman of the Kansas City Startup Foundation. She recently received the Kansas City Ambassador Award from Washington University in St. Louis.

She creates value for her partners by designing frictionless campaigns that focus on the success of the project as well as the success of the communities within the project. From designing charrettes to creating crisis communications strategies, her high-functioning nimble teams create meaningful and measurable campaigns.