A career civil servant with a strong commitment to the delivery of effective and accountable public services, Sarah took up post as Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2019 and has since led the organisation through a period of sustained change; including the delivery of a new strategy and operating model which has significantly improved customer delivery and internal efficiency.

Under Sarah’s stewardship, HSE has also successfully taken on extensive additional responsibilities, including establishing itself in new roles as the Building Safety Regulator for England and as Chemicals Regulator for the wider United Kingdom.

Prior to this, Sarah was Chief Executive of the Insolvency Service – which handles corporate and personal insolvencies - from 2015, guiding that agency through a period of major transformative change and leading the response to a number of high-profile corporate failures.

Throughout her career, Sarah has worked closely with Ministers and, before undertaking these Chief Executive roles, she spent much of her career working in the Ministry of Justice and its predecessor departments, including most recently as Director of Strategy and Change for Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service; her wider work in those departments spanned several areas including policy, strategy, finance and operational delivery.

Sarah has a master’s degree in Major Programme Management from the University of Oxford and is a graduate of the UK Government’s prestigious Major Projects Leadership Academy programme.

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