COUNTRY OF BIRTH

UK

INDUSTRY

Media & Communications, Social Advocacy

TOP ACHIEVEMENTS

Sarah Jane Brown is the founder of the children’s charity Theirworld. She is a global influencer in the areas of healthcare, education, and child welfare and an international executive in the media and communications industry. For more than 15 years, Brown has been a successful entrepreneur, launching world-wide initiatives for the benefit of women and children.

EARLY CAREER

In 1993, after spending some time working at a brand consultancy, Brown co-founded an independent PR firm - Hobsbawm Macaulay. The firm represented various trade unions, the Labor Party, and the New Statesman magazine, among others. Eight years after the firm was founded Brown left to start a family.

Focusing on Women and Children

In 2002 Brown founded her first charity organization, PiggyBanksKids. The charity focuses on researching the prevalence of complications in pregnancy, and within two years it led to the establishment of the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh. The lab conducted extensive research on obstetrics and neonatal approaches to birth complications. In 2009, Brown chaired the first meeting of the New Consensus for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health at the UN. During this meeting, ten third world countries promised to implement specific strategies that would significantly improve the health of millions of children and women within a six-year period. Brown’s next project was the Theirworld Birth Cohort Project, which she launched in November 2015. This project is a continuation of PiggyBanksKids' mission to reduce the complications of premature birth. It aims to improve the health of prematurely born babies and focuses on identifying the causes and consequences of birth-related brain injuries, in order to accelerate treatment development.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

1. Brown spent her early childhood in Tanzania where her mother ran a school. 2. She is the wife of former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. 3. Brown delivered the keynote speech at the World Health Organisation's 62nd Assembly.