Sarah Ansell (Executive Committee Member)
Sarah Ansell – Director, Advancement and CEO, Charles Sturt Foundation
What is your work/passion/ side-hustle?
I’m the Director of Advancement at Charles Sturt University and CEO of the Charles Sturt Foundation Trust. After thirty five years in the marketing and communications industry I have finally found my home in the philanthropic space. You get to meet and work with incredible, selfless people day in day out and ultimately it just feels worthwhile. I hold a number of board roles and have a strong bent for social enterprise, social justice and the equity and diversity required to mould our society.
I’ve always held quite a broad portfolio which works well for me as variety and exploration of the unknown (for me) are important drivers in my life. Karmically I’m told I’m on a path of discovery and that suits me just fine!
Work has always been intense so my side hussle has largely been focused on my family. We love to travel and I love to find new challenges so I can safely say backpacking through Boreno for six weeks with 3 primary aged children on a very small budget was one of the best experiences of my life.
2. Beyond the 9 to 5 – what do you live for
My family first and foremost - Hubby, children and animals. I have three incredible, independent adult children (2 boys and a girl) who have all flown the coup and live in three different cities. Fortunately we’re all very close and still manage to spend plenty of time together. My husband and I spent their childhood driving round the country to watch their sport and we’re still doing it. (Very happily).
Outside of that, as mentioned, it’s definitely travel. It has always been the one constant in my life. We have a very long bucket list which was going quite well until COVID hit! Meanwhile there’s a big beautiful country of our own out there!
3. How did you land in Wagga - Are you Wagga born and bred, grew up here moved away and returned, moved here later in life and stayed because you love it, or something else that landed you here?
Love! I think that is a fairly common Wagga story! I grew up in England and as a backpacker making my way around the world I met my husband to be in Sydney. He had grown up in Wagga. While my journey continued it was a very tough goodbye and luckily I returned to Australia to him and a job in Sydney. We left Sydney not long after we were married as we wanted to raise a family in the country and haven’t looked back. It has been a wonderful place with so much opportunity and great friends and support.
4. Woman (famous or not) you are most inspired by and why?
My daughter Amelia – daily! I’m inspired by women who set goals and go out and get what they want however tough it is or daunting it feels. Women who push boundaries and break down barriers. They don’t have to be world changing, just life changing for them.
When Amelia sets her mind to something it’s on! At 7 she was the only girl to play Rugby League in Wagga (she also did ballet so no stereotypes here). Wagga Touch Association then changed their rules to allow her to play with her team in the boys comp team rather than a mixed team and she now works for the NRL and plays Rugby League for Victoria. She’s the Victoria Change Our Game ambassador and introduced a disability team at Melbourne Storm. At 25 she has just launched her own business – a social enterprise ‘Sidekick’. It’s a community network linking people with a disability to a sport orientated support worker.
Her energy exhausts me but reminds me how incredible young women today are – our future is definitely safe in their hands.
