About
Sara Nelson Goertel
President, SNG Consulting
Sara Nelson Goertel has worked in customer experience since 1998 and has run SNG Consulting since 2005.
Through SNG she has led journey mapping, voice-of-customer research, loyalty strategy and brand positioning for clients like Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche; Saks Fifth Avenue, Windsor Fashion, Vince and Tory Burch; Weleda, NARS and Clé de Peau Beauté; Royal Caribbean and Regent Seven Seas; and Purina, Diageo, Bayer and CVS. Work that began inside one brand's US business has grown into frameworks carried across global market networks and extended to sister marques. She works directly with companies and as senior customer experience expertise inside agency and consulting engagements.
Before SNG she spent seven years at Peppers & Rogers Group, where she led the Organizational Transformation Center of Excellence, working with Ford, Jaguar, BMW, SAP, Verizon, Sony and Marriott.
Sara holds an MA in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University and a BA in History, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania. She works from Darien, Connecticut.
How the firm works
Senior throughout, sized to the work.
For larger programs we bring in specialists we have worked with for years: researchers, moderators, facilitators, analysts. Senior people throughout, and scale is never the reason to say no.
We use AI where it makes the work faster and sharper: synthesizing research, finding the patterns in open-ended feedback at a scale that used to take a team. The judgment is the part that does not change, and it is the part you are hiring.
Most of the work happens in interviews and in rooms. Getting people to say what they really think, and then getting a group that disagrees to commit to one plan, is the part that decides whether anything changes. It is also the part that does not get easier with better tools.
We have never tried to be the biggest. Boutique by choice since 2005, and the work arrives three ways: a client comes back, someone recommends us, or an agency or consulting partner brings us into their own engagement.
The size of the company matters less than the problem. A founder getting the experience right the first time is as interesting as a global brand fixing one that drifted, and we would rather take on the interesting version of this work than the routine version of it.
Training and certification
- Burke Institute trained focus group moderator
- Trained in mediation at Columbia's International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution
- AI Accelerator, U of Digital, 2026
Board and civic. Trustee, The Woodhall School · Executive Board Member, Treasurer and Executive Committee Member, The Noroton Heights Depot · Co-President, Penn Club of Fairfield County
Start with a conversation.
Tell us what is not working. If it is not our question to answer, or we are not the right fit, we will say so.
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