Sarah McKinnon

Sarah McKinnon is a Managing Partner and Wealth Advisor at Strategic Advisory Services, where she leads the firm's Little Rock office. She works with individuals, families, business owners, foundations and nonprofits whose financial lives may look very different, but who share a desire for thoughtful guidance, strategic perspective and a plan built around their lives.

Sarah believes wealth management should begin not with a portfolio handout focused on projected returns, but with a conversation about purpose: what a client's wealth is meant to accomplish, today and for the generations that follow. For one client, that may mean the freedom to step away from a business; for another, providing for future generations, supporting a cause they care deeply about or protecting a family member's future. As Sarah puts it, the numbers of course matter greatly, but they're only part of the picture.

Sarah has spent her career looking at wealth from almost every side of the table. She began on Wall Street in investment banking at Morgan Stanley, where she worked with financial institutions through the 2008 financial crisis and contributed to more than $100 billion in equity and equity-linked transactions. From there, she moved through private equity, family office advisory, venture capital in Israel and strategic corporate work before finding what she had been looking for all along: a way to use that financial expertise in service of people's lives. Before joining Strategic, Sarah managed portfolios for institutional and high-net-worth clients at the largest Arkansas-based bank, helping families and organizations think through investment strategy, estate considerations, wealth transfer and long-term goals.

That institutional background gives Sarah access and more importantly understanding of a broad range of economic issues, asset classes and investment products providing her the tools to provide her client’s a diversified portfolio of equities, fixed income and in some cases alternative assets that best fits a client's short- and long-term investment goals.

Two groups are especially close to Sarah's heart: women navigating divorce, widowhood, a health diagnosis, caregiving or another life transition, offering guidance from someone who understands both the numbers and the moment; and parents navigating life alongside a loved one with a disability or developmental difference. Drawing from her own family experience, she brings an informed, personal perspective to families planning for a loved one's future, including Special Needs Trusts, ABLE accounts, healthcare access and long-term family planning.

Sarah holds a Master of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Economics, summa cum laude, from Southern Methodist University. She also completed a General Course Degree at The London School of Economics and Political Science.

When she isn't focused on Economics and Financial markets, she has many interests ranging from childhood development and brain health to entrepreneurship, philanthropy, public policy and emerging technology, and she is an avid photographer and writer. She is a proud member of the Arkansas Zoological Foundation and a committee member for Wild Wines, one of Central Arkansas's signature annual events. She also devotes many hours to ACCESS Group Inc., a nonprofit serving individuals with language and learning disorders and developmental disabilities from six weeks old through adulthood, and assists each year with its largest fundraiser, Starry, Starry Night.

Sarah lives in Little Rock with her son, William Walker.