Hi, I’m Sarah Cuesta. I help executive teams stop firefighting and start leading by building emotionally intelligent managers, creating structure, and cultivating trust across remote teams. So, your people thrive, and your business scales.
You don’t wake up wanting HR support.
You wake up thinking about decisions you can’t afford to get wrong.
As your company grows, people issues take more of your time. Managers escalate more often. The consequences of a misstep feel heavier than they used to. Legal exposure, cost creep, churn, and leadership distraction all rise at once. At the same time, hiring a full-time Head of People still doesn’t feel right.
This is where fractional support fits.
I work with leadership teams at different levels of involvement based on how much decision load, risk, and complexity you carry right now. Every engagement has a clear scope, defined time boundaries, and agreed priorities focused on what genuinely needs senior attention.
After 20+ years helping people thrive — from therapy rooms to fast-growing digital agencies — I’ve learned how to turn people problems into powerful business outcomes.
These days, I partner with founders and small teams to bring calm, clarity, and cohesion to their people operations. That means leading with empathy and structure: helping you build the trust, systems, and communication your team needs to perform at its best.
Whether it’s hiring the right people, resolving conflict with care, or building performance processes that actually work, I help you take the guesswork out of managing people — and give you back the time and energy to lead your business.
It’s not about adding more meetings or policies. It’s about building a culture that scales.
If your team is growing — but you're still handling HR off the side of your desk — I can help.
I work with leadership teams at different levels of involvement based on how much decision load, risk, and complexity you carry right now. Every engagement has a clear scope, defined time boundaries, and agreed priorities focused on what genuinely needs senior attention.
Senior judgment when you need it, without another function to manage
This level is right for you if:
You get direct access to senior-level People Operations support without adding overhead or process.
This typically includes:
This model stays advisory by design. The focus stays on better decisions, not HR execution.
When people complexity starts to slow you down
This level is right for you if:
At this stage, informal approaches stop scaling. You do not need more policies. You need consistent judgment and structure across the week.
This typically includes:
This is the most common engagement for companies that have outgrown informal decision-making but do not yet need a full-time People leader.
Deeper support when the stakes are higher
This level is right for you if:
This typically includes:
To protect depth, continuity, and quality of support, I can only take on a limited number of anchor partnerships.
Fractional work only succeeds when expectations stay clear and capacity stays realistic.
I review availability based on current client commitments and your needs. If you are unsure which level fits, we assess that together based on your decision load, risk exposure, and growth trajectory.