Dr. Sarah Davis-Arnold
Nurse scientist. Leadership-development expert. System strategist. Change Innovator. Conservation advocate.
Sarah’s research focuses on how mission-driven people stay motivated, develop, and lead ethically in demanding, under-resourced systems.
Through Leading Whole, she helps organizations in healthcare and conservation develop and sustain the people who carry the mission.
She founded Leading Whole after two decades of watching exceptional leaders give everything to their missions and watching their organizations fail to give anything back.
From bedside to the boardroom
Sarah’s career spans the full arc of healthcare, education, and industry leadership.
She currently leads post-acute care network strategy at one of the nation’s premier academic health systems, where she builds partnerships and systems that ensure patients are safely discharged beyond hospital walls.
Before that, she served in many leadership roles, including Director of Nursing for pre- and post-surgical operations, leading frontline teams through some of healthcare’s hardest years.
Sarah also serves and has served on industry and non-profit boards, ranging from some of the most under-resourced efforts to million-dollar, cutting-edge industry efforts.
At the national level, Sarah has held national federal healthcare leadership roles — including serving as the National Clinical Nurse Advisor for Cardiology for the Veterans Health Administration.
She has co-authored chapters and journal articles encompassing evidence-driven implementation science efforts, innovative dual-agency communities of practice, peer mentorship, and cross-organizational initiatives for VA/DoD clinical practice guidelines that shaped care for millions of veterans and service members.
Credentials and Background
Her doctoral research and ongoing writing focus on what actually sustains mission-driven leaders — and the most evidence-based ways to educate, train, and set leaders up for success. That work became Leading Whole.
Beyond healthcare, Sarah is an active advocate for ocean conservation, bringing the same leadership lens to the organizations protecting our planet’s most fragile ecosystems.