Description
Sarah Lewis, OBE OLY is a highly respected international sports federation leader who is well-connected throughout the Olympic Movement and sports community with an extensive global network at the highest levels across all sectors of the sports movement and industry. Sarah is frequently invited to speak at major international sports conferences and has been a pioneer and role model in driving the increase for gender equality in the leadership, participation, and recognition in international sport.
Before embarking on a career in sports administration, Sarah became an Olympian (OLY) in Alpine Skiing, representing Great Britain at the Calgary 1988 Games before transitioning to sport business industry, media, and the national and international governing bodies.
From 1998 to 2020 she was Secretary General of the leading international winter sports federation, FIS (skiing and snowboarding) and subsequently established her own consultancy, Sarah Lewis Global Sports Leader GmbH in 2022 covering a wide range of activities to serve sport, business, and society. In addition, Sarah was lead mentor for the first Sports Innovation Winter Sports Global Virtual Accelerator (2020-2021) and she served as Senior Strategic Advisor to the Chinese Winter Sports Association with their Beijing 2022 legacy implementation objectives, and Games performance preparation (2021-2022). In 2021, she ran for the presidency of FIS.
As part of her role as FIS Secretary General she served on the Council for 22 years and chaired all biannual World Championship Coordination Commissions. Sarah was appointed as Secretary General of the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federation (2014–2020), a member of the IOC Programme Commission and Coordination Commissions for the Olympic Winter Games and Youth Olympic Games (2026, 2022, 2020, 2018). Additionally, covering all Olympic and non-Olympic Sports with more than 100 member Federations, she served on the Steering Committee of the annual SportAccord International Federation Convention (2002-2020).
Sarah was educated at City of London School for Girls, the Ski Academy Moutiers, France and the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. Through her international roles, she is fluent in three languages and colloquially in several additional ones.
In 2018 Sarah was awarded the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire on the Queen's New Year Honours List for services to sport. She was a proud member of the UK delegation that secured the hosting rights for the London 2012 Olympic Games in 2005.