Sean’s Story

Born in Crete and raised in Galesburg, IL, Sean R. Stegall brings more than a quarter-century of experience to successfully address the greatest challenges and opportunities for America’s local governments.

As Cary, NC’s CEO, this means being keenly focused on Cary’s future by ensuring the implementation of the 2040 Imagine Cary Community Plan.

Imagine Cary, which was crafted by more than 1,000 people, is the blueprint for “keeping Cary Cary” as the community shifts from a fast-growing to maturing city of 191,000 residents. This means fixing things by realigning people, processes, and purposes for an ever-changing future.

For his part, Sean is personally involved in Council relations, organizational development, and employee coaching as well as promoting technological advancements, strengthening Cary’s role as a regional partner, and raising Cary’s profile on the national and global stages.

“Invested citizens are perhaps the most potent tool in creating good government.”

“We should all feel lost. There shouldn’t be certainty.”

Sean’s professional service has included posts in three states where he’s focused on a wide variety of topics, including finance and budgeting, parks and recreation, legislative affairs, communications and engagement, planning, technology, and emergency management.

Sean has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Western Illinois University as well as a Master’s in Public Administration from Northern Illinois University. He also holds certificates from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Senior Executive Institute at the University of Virginia, the Rocky Mountain Program at Colorado University, and the Executive Education Program at Vanderbilt University. In addition, Sean has successfully completed Leadership Coaching for Organizational Excellence from American University, which is recognized by the International Coaching Federation.

Today as a CEO, Sean’s perspective is simple: “We can change the world by creating the local government that doesn’t exist.”

“Every town seeking to create a government that doesn’t exist will deploy the same building blocks: people.”