Sara Austin

Sara Austin is a passionate champion for the rights of women and children, with 20+ years of experience in the charitable sector. She is the founder and CEO of Children First Canada, a new national charity with a bold and ambitious vision to make Canada the best place in the world for kids to grow up. You’ll find her name on several “most powerful” lists, including the prestigious Top 25 Women of Influence and in 2017 she was the youngest person to be inducted into the Top 100 Most Powerful Women Hall of Fame. Her work advocating for children began on the streets of Bangkok and has taken her into the top circles of power at the United Nations, government corridors, and boardrooms around the world. Most notably, she led a global campaign that resulted in the adoption of the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child for a Communications Procedure.