2026 Young Past Student of Distinction: Natalie Charlton (’12)

Natalie is an experienced sports professional with a rich background in numerous and varied positions spanning the industry, including grassroots and community development, broadcast and major events, professional sports team management, and international sport diplomacy.

For those who were unable to join Natalie at the Past Student Awards Dinner in March, below is a copy of her speech.

“I would like to thank everyone who has joined for the celebrations this evening, including three of my fellow classmates and more importantly, best friends, Courtney, Morgan, and Kate. These three women, all highly accomplished in their own rights, actually surprised me this evening and it means the world to have their support today. We have known each other for more than half our lifetimes and they have not only seen but supported and encouraged every version of me so far, and for that I am extremely grateful.

I think it also speaks to one of the things that has stuck with me most from my time at St Margaret’s: the importance of the community and the network of people you surround yourself with. It’s not lost on me the privilege of attending St Margaret’s and benefitting from being in an environment that is centred around fostering growth and success, and St Margaret’s taught me early on how important the relationships in your life are, and what it means to build a community.

So much of that stemmed from the teachers and staff who surrounded us. I feel very lucky to be able to talk so fondly of many of the teachers I had here, and to recognise the impact they had on me, my perspectives, my understanding of learning and how these apply in my life now. My first head of year was Ms Moody, my first form teacher was Mr Peinke, and the first teacher that I met (actually at a welcome event before the school year started) was Ms Minotti – and I feel honoured that all of these names are ones that most people here not only recognise and respect, but hold closely to their hearts as I do.

I can honestly say that school was a brilliant chapter of my life. I feel extremely lucky to have experienced everything St Margaret’s had to offer a student, and that those experiences positively shaped me and impacted my life in so many ways long after the Panama was packed away. My school journey didn’t give me all the answers of exactly what I wanted to do or be when I grew up, but it did show me so many ways to learn, to seek and value experiences, and to explore perspectives and seize opportunities. I started at St Margaret’s in Year 10, and I’m forever grateful to my parents and family for supporting me to make the decision to move schools, and trusting me to know this was the right decision for me. St Margaret’s enabled me to explore different interests and passions, and I think the two most impactful lessons were in the importance of building relationships and community, and to trust that risk and opportunity are often one in the same, and certainly worth taking – both things that I believe are incredible lessons for a young girl to learn, and ones that shaped who I am.

St Margaret’s also shaped how I understood these concepts in “the real world”, as not long after graduating, I was offered the opportunity to return in an administration temp role and as a housemother in the boarding house, which became some of my favourite roles, and showed me what it took to build the very environment I had benefitted from being in.

Today, I work in the sports industry and have held a range of roles, once again prioritising understanding perspectives and experiences, but now specialising in performance pathways. At the core of my work in pathways and talent identification is how we attract and engage those willing to take the risk and push towards high performance. Through assembling the best teams of people possible, we work to create world class environments that not only foster success, but develop and shape people to be better off for having been part of our sporting world. I love this space. It’s a challenge and process that resonates with me deeply, and something that I truly believe I learnt so much about through my own experience of just this, at St Margaret’s.

I feel very lucky to be in a position now that I can say younger me would be incredibly excited by where I am and what I have the opportunity to do. I don’t know whether that’s because I found such an incredible role that I didn’t even know existed, and that has afforded me opportunities like having worked at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and spending the last two years developing the Northern Territory’s first Para-sport pathway program, or because I’ve always loved travel and the fact that I go to Sydney and Alice Springs and get to call it work. I’m not sure, but she’d be stoked.

But really what I’d be most proud of is that so many of these opportunities were born from risks I took and relationships I’d built, because I was lucky enough to learn to trust that process early on. There’s no way I could have experienced half the things I’ve had the chance to already, or worked with the calibre of teammates to achieve what we have, without having the confidence and belief that taking the risk to try something new and build the path as you go might just be the very thing that determines your success.

Similarly, I wouldn’t have benefited from those experiences nearly as much, if it weren’t for the people I met, learnt from, hustled with, went into bat for, and built teams with. I know these are things that completely shaped my time at St Margaret’s, and which St Margaret’s shaped in me. They’re exactly the sorts of lessons that helped me see my next opportunity, and were leant on very recently, when I took another leap and changed jobs. I have started a brand new role, and I am now working at Wheelchair Rugby Australia as the Head of Pathways. My role focuses on talent identification and athlete development, as well as leading the very first Australian Women’s Wheelchair Rugby Program, as we build and prepare the team for the first ever Wheelchair Rugby Women’s World Championships later this year – which feels like an incredibly special and fitting next step and avenue, to share these valuable lessons I’ve carried with me, with a new team of incredible women.

So, I want to thank St Margarets for being the safe place that I landed when I took my first leap of faith as a 14 year old girl, choosing to change course for the first time, and for preparing me for the lifetime of leaps that I have no doubt are yet to come. But I think that’s the best part, and as someone much wiser than me once said, opportunity only dances with those already on the dancefloor.”