Sarah and her husband Phillip chose Maryville to raise their sons, Andy and Adam. Phillip has worked at Denso for 22 years. Sarah has worked in digital media and communications for over 17 years.
Her portfolio includes award-winning project management, digital and communications work for local and national media, cable television, B2B, tourism & hospitality, music & entertainment, small business, public utility and nonprofit.
Currently, she is focused on strengthening digital operations and leading communications and marketing efforts at Friends of the Smokies, an official nonprofit of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On November 3, 2020, Sarah was elected as Maryville’s first City Councilwoman.
In 2012, she joined the HGTV digital team where she led the print-to-web conversion of HGTV Magazine from trial to launch. AdAge awarded the publication with the title “Launch of the Year.” Under her leadership, the HGTV Pinterest platform became the top source of social media traffic and was named as one of the Top Pinners to follow by the Huffington Post. Along with curating and optimizing front-facing content for HGTV’s primary website, she was a contributor to the CableFAX award-winning blog “Design Happens.”
She was named site manager of the Great American Country network at Scripps where her content and SEO strategies helped generate unprecedented web traffic gains and was directly correlated to an increase in Nielson ratings and digital brand awareness.
Sarah is a founding board member of Clayton-Bradley Academy. She led the startup’s student recruitment campaign.
Sarah helped launch Alliance for Better Nonprofits, a startup resource and training center with the capacity to serve organizations across 25 counties. She led the development and deployment of the center's marketing tools, social media platforms and website with an integrated database.
Following the center's launch, Sarah was named as one of the Top 5 Outstanding Young Professionals of Knoxville, receiving an inaugural YPK Community Impact Award.
Sarah served as the senior digital strategist at CMOco, a marketing outsourcing agency. While there, she managed social media for a wide-range of clients including retail, e-commerce, hospitality, B2B and a public utility.
As a project manager, Sarah has managed digital operations for a variety of events, ranging from professional conferences and large-scale fundraisers to film screenings and music festivals.
Sarah is the founder of The Herron Group, a community of talented digital professionals who provide contract consulting and services to small nonprofits and progressive political campaigns.