Firm: City of St. Paul
Title: Debt Manager
Age: 33
Eleven years ago, before transitioning into a public finance career, Sarah Brown taught English in China. Sarah studied Chinese during college and with jobs difficult to come by during the Great Recession, it offered a great opportunity.
When Sarah returned home to Minneapolis, she gravitated toward public sector work. “I think that I was predestined to work in the public sector,” Sarah said, as her mother worked for the county and state, and her next-door neighbor became a prominent politician. “The community or ‘village’ that raised me are the underpinning for the life of service I lead today.”
Sarah landed at the Minnesota Department of Revenue working as an auditor in 2011. A debt analyst position opened for Minnesota Management and Budget. Sarah got it. “I knew that I wanted a more project-based job that still dealt with numbers and touched public policy. Public finance has been the perfect fit,” Sarah said.
Sarah joined St. Paul’s finance team in 2017 as a treasury analyst and in April 2020 was named debt manager. Besides managing the triple-A-rated city’s bond issuance, Sarah creates financial models for revenues and expenditures, authored the city’s first debt policies, and most recently executed financings for the Ford site’s $93M public-private partnership for a redevelopment of the 122-acre former Ford Motor plant.
“Her impressive professional resume, her commitment to community service, her recognition by others for her leadership skills, and the respect she has from many in the field of public finance and municipal government make her the ideal recipient,” Kristin Hanson, a director PFM Financial Advisors, said in nominating her. It was during Sarah's tenure overseeing Minnesota state debt management that Hanson hired her in 2014.
When not working, Sarah dances, gardens, and reads. She also loves to travel abroad. Having been to over 15 foreign countries, Sarah finds traveling to be a transformative and eye-opening experience
Activism also courses through her private endeavors. After losing her cousin to suicide during high school, Sarah and her best friend launched the Silver Ribbon Campaign — a group that raises awareness and educates students on mental health awareness at South High School and is still going strong today.
Sarah is also a champion of racial and social justice issues. She serves on the City’s Equity Change Team, the Black History Month and Jewish History Month committees, and in leadership positions for her neighborhood association. “The murder of George Floyd was exceptionally hard, personally and for my city,” Sarah said of the murder and civil unrest that followed the killing of Floyd in May 2020 by a Minneapolis police officer.
Sarah also volunteers for numerous organizations including Open Arms of Minnesota cooking and delivering free meals to people living with life-threatening illnesses and has provided free tax help for individuals through Volunteer Income Tax Assistance.
