Sarah Zárate serves as Chief of Staff for Mayor Mahan. Sarah brings nearly 15 years of wide ranging policy experience in local government, the last seven of which were in the City of San José’s City Manager’s Office where she provided organizational strategic support to the City’s leadership team, including as Director of the City Manager’s Office of Administration, Policy, and Intergovernmental Relations. Sarah has overseen the City’s intergovernmental relations function as well as cross-functional policy issues such as Alternate and Co-Responses to 911 Calls for Service, Charter Review Commission, Gun Harm Reduction, Homelessness and Blight Reduction, Cannabis Equity, Wage Theft Prevention, Suicide Prevention, Community Solutions to Domestic Violence, and Disability Accessibility, as well as strengthening policy solutions through the deliberate use of data throughout the organization.  

Prior to coming to San José, Sarah was Policy Director for the Milwaukee Health Department, Legislative Fiscal Manager, and Chief of Staff to the Milwaukee City Council President. During her time there, she provided leadership around policy development, strategy planning activities and cross-sector collaborations, systems improvement consulting, data and evaluation capacity building, fiscal policy management, and innovative program development.

Sarah was a participant in the Young American Leaders Program with Harvard Business School in 2022, has developed award winning programs, and was recognized as a Leader of the Future by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. She is passionate about advancing equity and systems change work in local government, and is driven by placing community members, and especially the most vulnerable, at the heart of policy work.

Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Michigan. She is originally from Puerto Rico.