After two decades across law, diversity, talent, culture, boards, coaching and storytelling, Ara Tucker is turning the breadth of her experience into a business built around one question: what stories are shaping the way we work and live?
August 10, 2026
Some careers look impressive because they follow a straight line. Others become meaningful precisely because they don’t.
Ara Tucker’s career belongs firmly in the second category.
She began as a corporate attorney after studying art history and visual arts at Princeton. From there came higher education administration, diversity leadership, Morgan Stanley, Audible, Chief People Officer roles at health-tech companies, board positions, coaching, podcasting and even three published novels.
On paper, the chapters might look unrelated.
To Tucker, they eventually became one story.
After leaving her most recent Chief People Officer role in October 2025, she faced a familiar executive crossroads: call recruiters and pursue another senior corporate position, or pause and ask what two decades of experience had actually prepared her to do.
She chose the second path.
“I realized is story. What are the stories that we tell ourselves? What are the stories we tell about ourselves, and where are those gaps?”
That realization became StoriesWorks, her executive advisory and coaching practice working with individuals and organizations navigating transition and transformation. The premise is that the gap between the story people tell about themselves and the reality underneath it can become costly when left unexamined.
Her own transition exposed a challenge many experienced professionals eventually face: being good at many things can make it harder to explain exactly what you are selling.
Tucker describes herself as a generalist. In corporate life, that breadth was an advantage. Executives are often expected to move across functions, contribute wherever needed and connect different parts of an organization.
Entrepreneurship changes the equation.
Suddenly, time, money, capacity and attention are finite. The question is no longer What can I do? but What is the painkiller problem I am uniquely equipped to solve?
For Tucker, that means turning accumulated knowledge into a clearer product and learning how to take it to market in a way that is customer-centric rather than centered on her own résumé.
That process is still unfolding.
She currently runs StoriesWorks largely on her own, using technology and validated tools to handle assessments, forms and other repeatable processes while protecting the things she believes require human judgment: discretion, perspective and expertise developed over time.
Her approach also reflects how she thinks about entrepreneurship itself.
For Tucker, being an honest entrepreneur does not mean presenting a perfectly constructed success story. It means acknowledging that the journey is uneven and sharing what works and what does not so other entrepreneurs can move faster.
That philosophy is already visible in her podcast, I’m Here Too, which recently reached its one-year mark. Its conversations explore finding your voice, leaving a successful path that no longer fits, creativity, midlife and the question of what comes next.
There is a consistent thread: the stories people inherit, construct and eventually choose to rewrite.
Tucker’s ideal clients are people willing to participate in that process. She does not position herself as someone who hands out answers. Instead, she asks questions designed to illuminate answers people can discover themselves.
Execution Tip
List five things you have become known for across your career. Then ask: What problem connects all five? That intersection may be more valuable than any individual skill.
Tucker’s entrepreneurial chapter is still being written. But perhaps that is the point.
A career does not always reveal its meaning while you are living it. Sometimes you have to step away from the titles, roles and accumulated expertise long enough to see the story underneath.
And once you find that story, it can become the foundation for what comes next.
Ara Tucker | LinkedIn
