Special Guest Feature: Sarah Kerbeshian | Purpose Fueled Plymouth
Sarah Kerbeshian spent years arranging her life around everyone else’s timeline. Her husband’s career. His continued education. Their kids.
Then she asked herself one question: if not now, then when? She went back to grad school for her Master’s in Organizational Leadership and started her own consulting practice at the same time, rather than waiting to finish one before starting the other.
Today she’s the Founder & Principal Consultant at Kerbeshian Strategic HR Consulting. Here’s Sarah, in her own words.
What do you actually do (in plain language), the way you’d explain it to a friend over coffee?
I help small and mid-sized businesses and nonprofits treat their people strategy like it actually matters to the bottom line, not like a nice-to-have. Practically, that means I come in as fractional HR leadership, audit what’s broken in how a company hires, manages, and retains its people, and build the systems that fix it. Twenty years in the field taught me that most workplace problems that look like performance problems are actually wellbeing problems in disguise.
What’s the moment or decision that changed the direction of your life or career?
When we became empty nesters, after years of putting my husband’s career, his continued education, and our children first, I asked myself one question: if not now, then when? I went back to grad school for my Master’s in Organizational Leadership and started my own consulting practice at the same time, rather than waiting to finish one before finishing the other.
Two months in, I had a concussion that forced me to slow everything down and take real recovery time. Finishing both anyway convinced me that wellbeing isn’t optional. It’s what determines whether you make it through the pivot at all.
What do you believe about people that most others in your field don’t?
Most HR consultants treat wellbeing as a perk to bolt on after the real work is done. I think it’s the real work.
Retention, engagement, performance- they’re all downstream of whether people feel supported, not upstream of it. I didn’t just study that in a capstone (it was my Capstone topic); I lived it during my own medical recovery, and I built my practice around it being a strategic bet, not a soft one.
What are you most proud of, in life, not just in work?
After years of investing in everyone else, my husband’s career, and our children, I made the leap to invest in myself, and I kept going even after a concussion tried to take the year from me.
I’m also proud of how I’ve chosen to honor our son Luke, whom we lost to SIDS, through the grief support volunteering I do in his memory. The first client of my business, Brighter Days Family Grief Center, was a place his loss led me to in the first place.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
A camp director. Looking back, that’s not so far from what I do now: building a place where people feel supported enough to grow.
How do your closest friends or family describe you? Who do they say you are?
My family would call me kind, helpful, thoughtful, & a probably bit stubborn. My friends would say loyal and thoughtful too, the kind of friend who remembers the anniversaries of both the good times and the hard ones. I still gather regularly with a group of friends I’ve had since I was 14. I’m a cheerleader for the people around me; I tend to see the good in people, and I’m always glad to bring someone new into the fold.
What don’t people know about you that they should?
Before I ever worked in HR, I was a primary counselor at a youth shelter. People assume I came to “people work” through corporate HR. I actually came to corporate HR through direct social work, and that’s the lens I never lost.
What does “purpose” mean to you personally?
Purpose is what’s left after you stop arranging your life around everyone else’s timeline. For years, mine was shaped by my family, which is its own kind of meaning. Purpose, to me, is finally asking what I’m supposed to be doing and then actually doing it, even when the timing isn’t convenient.
What’s the title of your next chapter, in life or in business?
“Built, Not Waited For.”
What don’t people know about you that they should?
I was an extra in a movie back when I worked at the Walker Art Center when I was an Art Guard. It was called “Drop Dead Fred”. It was a fun experience.
Also, I was a break dancer when I was in middle school!
What’s one thing you’re hoping people leave your conversation thinking about?
The “right time” is usually a story we tell ourselves to stay comfortable. I’d want someone listening while at PFC to name their own version of “if not now, then when” and actually sit with it.
What’s a question you wish more people would ask you?
Not “how did you recover,” but “what did almost losing a year teach you about what you were building?” That’s the more interesting question, and it’s the one that actually explains why my business looks the way it does.
Sarah Kerbeshian is a Special Guest at Purpose Fueled Plymouth on September 11th.
Conversations like this one happen every month at Purpose Fueled events across the Twin Cities. If you want to be in the room for the next one, reserve your spot here.