Childhood & family background
I grew up in 1970s Sydney, Australia, with a Greek father who was born in Egypt, studied in the US and migrated to Australia, and an Australian mother with Irish and French ancestry.
Both were born communicators – my father very verbal (he was fluent in 5 languages), my mother with a penchant for the written word (she was an avid reader). Both loved to argue.
I took something from both of them: a love of languages, a flair for writing and a passion for debating and conversing on all manner of topics that has stuck with me.
At 12, I won my first writing prize, for a self-published children’s book Kri Kri Island, which was (very loosely) based on our time living in a village on Crete.
University years
I studied Japanese, French, Mandarin, Linguistics and Politics at uni, and ended up working as a business and financial journalist in Australia and Hong Kong, then as a copywriter in a small design agency; I was in my early 30s when I discovered the NFP sector and fundraising comms and started my second career.
Discovering fundraising & the for-purpose sector
Working with not for profits has brought me a lot of joy; whether it’s interviewing Amnesty activists, Greenpeace environmentalists, or scientific researchers; telling emotional stories and crafting compelling appeal copy to raise money for hundreds of worthy causes; or leading a team of creatives at Change&Co, the boutique agency I set up in 2015 which specialises in strategy, copy, data and design for effective charity campaigns.
