If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.Toni Morrison
There was a period when Ara Tucker was shrinking herself to fit the stories others wanted to tell about her — and tell for her. What she discovered on the other side of that is what she now brings into every room she enters: the belief that stories aren’t merely entertainment. They are world-building. They are life-changing.
She lives that belief and models it through action — in how she shows up, in how she equips and empowers others to write the stories they want to tell that aren’t yet written. She is most proud when someone tells her they feel more courageous, more clear, more confident as a result of something she said, wrote, or did. When someone moves from feeling blocked to feeling like they have the wrecking ball of inspiration they need to be the change they want to see.
Her speaking draws on two decades inside complex institutions across law, higher education, finance, media, and health tech — as a corporate attorney, senior leader, and Chief People Officer, as a board director and Audit Committee Chair, as a founder, and as a working novelist and creative practitioner. She speaks to cultural institutions, universities, professional schools, and mission-driven organizations navigating change. She delivers keynotes, serves on panels, and designs and facilitates workshops.
Talk topics
We cling to the stories that made us successful long after they stop serving us. This talk examines the mechanics of that shift — how past success becomes a ceiling and what it actually takes to rewrite the story to live a more integrated and fulfilling life. Drawing on her own biography and her novel How to Raise an Art Star, Ara makes the process of reinvention concrete, personal, and actionable.
For Leadership conferences · Executive leadership programs · Author events · Cultural institutions · Professional schools
The stories we tell aren’t merely for entertainment. They’re world-building, life-changing. Stories determine who gets resources, who gets heard, whose work gets taken seriously, which organizations become household names. When there’s a gap between the story an organization or a person believes and the one the world observes, it compounds quietly until it becomes too wide and too expensive to ignore. This talk examines how to close that gap — not for branding purposes, but for true alignment, for innovation, for sustainable cultures, businesses, and careers.
For Executive leadership programs · Organizational change contexts · Boards and governance audiences · Professional schools
Advantage is rarely a sudden transfer of opportunity. More often it is built slowly, through exposure, modeling, expectation, and proximity to how decisions get made. This talk makes that architecture visible — what gets passed down before credentials appear, how fluency becomes ease and ease gets mistaken for talent, which is then rewarded as merit, and what institutions and individuals can do once they can see the architecture clearly.
For Universities · Foundations · Boards · Executive education programs · Leadership conferences
What happens when the skills developed through creative practice — observation, empathy, tolerance for ambiguity, the ability to hold multiple truths at once — become the most valuable leadership tools in the room? This talk examines the relationship between creative work and institutional leadership, and why organizations that understand that relationship build more durable cultures.
For Arts organizations · Design schools · Cultural institutions · Innovation-focused leadership audiences · Professional schools
There’s a devastating cost to making yourself smaller in rooms that would benefit from experiencing your talents and potential. This talk draws on Ara’s work with artists, executives, and emerging leaders navigating the tension between belonging and authenticity — what it takes to develop narrative authority, keep it intact across a career, and exercise it without apology.
For Arts organizations · Universities · Professional development programs · Emerging leader programs
Ara’s Storytelling in Public session was deeply moving and beautifully crafted. From the moment she began with song and story, the room was captivated. Her openness invited connection, and her reflections on finding her voice resonated with everyone in the group — many of us were visibly moved. Through her generosity and warmth, Ara created an experience that reminded us how personal stories can bridge differences and help us see ourselves more clearly.
Program Manager, Foundation for Contemporary Arts (NYC)
formerly Senior Fellowship Manager, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
Ara Tucker
Ara Tucker is the founder of Stories Work, an advisory practice for leaders and institutions navigating the gap between the story they tell about themselves and the one playing out on the ground. She serves on a number of boards including chairing the Audit Committee at MoMA PS1. Ara holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law and an A.B. in Art History and Visual Arts from Princeton University. She is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the author of three novels, including How to Raise an Art Star. She is the host of the I’m Here Too podcast and creator of Nepo Baby: The Architecture of Advantage.
For keynotes, panels, and workshops
Reach out directly to begin a conversation.
contact@storieswork.studio