Sara is a world class champion for children with 20+ years of global and Canadian experience. As the Founder and CEO of Children First Canada, she leads a national movement to make Canada the best place in the world for kids to grow up.

You’ll find her name on several “most powerful” lists, and for good reason. She has led highly successful advocacy, public awareness and philanthropic campaigns and shaped major public policy efforts. She has learned multiple languages and is fluent in the parlance of diplomacy. Her work has taken her into the top circles of power in the UN, governments and boardrooms around the world.

In recognition of her efforts, she has been awarded the Top 25 Women of Influence, inducted into the Top 100 Most Powerful Women Hall of Fame in 2017, and named a finalist in RBC's Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards.

Sara has a proven track record of leading high achieving teams with local and global impact. Previously she served as the CEO of the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre, leading Canada’s most advanced frontline agency responding to child abuse, and as Director of the President’s Office of World Vision, supporting the CEO and Board and leading strategic global initiatives for women's and children's rights.

Her leadership has impacted the lives of millions of kids. Most notably, she led a global campaign that resulted in the adoption of the UN's 3rd Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This ground-breaking law allows kids or their advocates to hold governments accountable for violations of children’s rights, and has been used by youth like Greta Thunberg to seek global justice for a sustainable future.

She is an expert in board governance and has served on the UN's Global Advisory Council on Violence Against Children, the WXN Diversity Council and the Boards of Dalhousie University, the Canadian Coalition on the Rights of the Child and York Region Children’s Aid.

Sara holds an MSt/LLM in International Human Rights Law from Oxford and an Honours BA in International Development and Women’s Studies from Dalhousie University. She has completed the Governance Essentials Program for Non-Profits with the Institute of Corporate Directors, the Maytree Foundation’s Public Policy Program and the University of Alberta’s Indigenous Partnerships Program.

On a personal level, Sara is married and has a son, and she is a cancer survivor. She is an avid downhill skier, water sports enthusiast and international traveler.