Book Sarah Walsh keynote speaker

Sarah Walsh

Sarah Walsh is a motivational speaker and former Matildas star with 70 caps and 35 international goals for Australia. Enquire with our team to bring Sarah to your next event.

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Description

Sarah Walsh is a motivational speaker and former Matildas star with 70 caps and 35 international goals for Australia. She played at the 2004 Olympics and the 2007 FIFA World Cup. She also helped Australia win the 2010 Women’s Asian Cup. Learn more about her football career on Wikipedia.

Sarah Walsh Motivational Speaker: Career and Background

Since retiring from the pitch, Sarah has become a sports executive, a Logie-nominated commentator and a compelling public speaker. Her experience in high performance sport now fuels her advocacy for pay equity and inclusion. In turn, she has spearheaded commercial innovation across women’s sport and helped drive real social change.

As Head of Women’s Football for Football Australia, Sarah guided the Matildas through a historic home World Cup. The tournament generated $357 million in government and commercial investment. As a result, a further $200 million was earmarked for community facilities for girls after the tournament ended.

The Matildas shattered viewing records throughout the campaign. More than 11 million people watched the semi-final against England. This made it the single highest rating TV moment in Australian history. Today, Sarah is ranked 22nd on News Corp’s list of the 100 most influential women in sport.

Keynote Topics

Sarah’s keynote, Breaking New Ground, tells the incredible story of the Matildas and how Australia fell in love with women’s sport. She shares how the team broke records for viewership, attendance and merchandise sales well before the semi-finals. In particular, she recalls midfielder Katrina Gorry covering a record distance on the field, just months after returning from maternity leave. She also explains how the tournament captured the nation, from politicians competing for airtime with players to entire flights of passengers watching the penalty shootout against France. Finally, she reflects on the Cortnee Vine goal that sealed the best ever World Cup performance by an Australian team.

Sarah Walsh motivational speaker is based in Sydney. See her full profile on the Corporate Speakers Australia motivational speakers page.

Breaking New Ground

The story of the Matildas, when Australia fell in love with Women’s sport

In 2023 even before the Matildas reached the semi-finals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup they had broken all of the records.

They achieved record TV viewership, record match attendance, record merchandise sales and a record number of kilometers covered by a single player, Katrina Gorry in the midfield. It was also a record that Katrina Gorry was a new mum, returning to play professionally after 4 only months off the field. Australian politicians took to social media to be associated with the team.

The Minister for Defence announced that his portfolio could be managed by Matildas Goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold for 24 hours. The Minister for Sport declared she would like to be the Minister for the Matildas.

Sam Kerr’s calf made record headlines and she hadn’t played a minute. We saw whole flights of passengers watching in-flight entertainment – the Matildas penalty kick-out against France in the Quarter Finals. The AFL screened the game in the stadiums before the AFL fixtures were due to start.

Stadiums around Australia celebrated at the Cortnee Vine goal that sealed the record performance of any Australian team at any Football World Cup. And finally, at the end of the journey, even though the team didn’t take home the silverware they attracted a further $200M from the government to improve community facilities for women and girls – for all of the sports.

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