Anna Rose: Brave Heart

Climate-change campaigner Anna Rose has been making waves in the sustainability sector since she was a young girl. The author, campaigner and all-round legend is on a mission to inspire every Australian to take one courageous step at a time to save our precious planet.

- Ally Mcmanus

It’s easy to be captivated by Anna Rose’s beautiful smile and infectious laugh but it’s her climate-change activism that’s brought us together today to chat. Any time spent with this charming woman leaves you in no doubt that she is a force to be reckoned with.

Anna has just relocated to Sydney from Canberra with her husband Simon Sheikh — former head of GetUp! turned co-founder of Future Super — and their three-year-old son Robbie.

The climate-change crusader has achieved more than you’d expect for someone who’s made only 36 laps around the Sun. She is the strategic projects director with Farmers for Climate Action, an advisory board member of the University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute and, when she was at university, she co-founded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC).

She penned the book Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic, co-starred in the ABC documentary I Can Change Your Mind on Climate Change and was the national manager of Earth Hour with WWF-Australia from 2013 to 2015.

But it doesn’t stop there. Anna was awarded the Australian Geographic Conservationist of the Year award in 2014 and is a former board director of Solar Citizens, Green Music Australia and the Bob Brown Foundation. Did I mention she’s an all-round legend?

Building a movement

Anna was born in Newcastle with farming roots in the Hunter Valley and northwest NSW. This upbringing no doubt influenced her strong connection to nature. “That’s really why I became passionate about the environment,” she explains, “because I got to spend so much time on the land as a kid.”