Marketing business owner Sara Berry passionate about social enterprise

WOLLONGONG ADVERTISER

My passion for business began from an early age, with my parents building up their businesses during my childhood, it was a large part of family life. My brother and I were all always on the perimeters of what was going on and dinner-time conversations were often about business matters. Before I hit 15 years of age, I had worked as a papergirl, a "ding dong Avon calling!" rep, a shop assistant in a market, a toy shop, a video shop and a chemist; I also did invoicing, all while still at school! Originally hailing from London, I landed my first job in marketing in the late '80s. My career began in the London advertising playground, where a little wet behind the ears, I joined my fellow graduates and entered the big agency world.

I think the agency world drew me in, as I saw it as a real opportunity to hone my diagonal thinking skills. As a student, I had been identified as a potential diagonal thinker and then read about this hypothesis at college. A diagonal thinker is someone who has the ability to think both creatively and logically. So for me, with what I do, the quest is to work creatively but with practical application. I loved the buzz of working in London and working alongside some of the industry greats, but as an early subscriber to Ekins "new economics", which had sustainable growth at its core, advertising per se, began to lack meaning for me. Marketing products that didn't necessarily fit with my desire for sustainable growth began to zap my passion for my profession. Anita Roddick was an early mentor of mine, with the opening of her shop in Brighton, she became the first woman in business to really pioneer the use of social and environmental campaigns to promote her business The Body Shop. Since that time I have always had the fire in my belly for the philosophy of profit with purpose; sustainable and purpose-driven business growth pioneered by the '70s futurists, The Club of Rome and Drucker.

How I came to live in Australia is a long story. I actually met my husband (Trevor Berry) in Los Angeles - in Disneyland - on a roller-coaster we always say - and life has been a roller-coaster ever since. That was in November 1991. I was doing a world trip with my best friend Fiona. We continued the rest of our holiday before making our way to Australia. When we landed in Sydney we wanted to buy an old car to travel around Australia with and, as I knew my husband was a car nut, I contacted him and he helped us to buy an old Holden Belmont ute. He and his best mate helped me and my best mate to refurbish this car and then we set around Australia. I did the trip and kept in touch but then had to leave because my visa ran out, so ended up back in England and life was to carry on but we kept in touch and he came out to meet my family. The following May I moved back here and settled in Wollongong for a while but we ended up moving to Leichhardt for work. We bought an old terrace house which we renovated but soon the travel bug hit us again and we decided to just pack up and go on another big trip to South America. As part of that trip I fell pregnant in Bolivia and then when we dropped by the US we visited the Grand Canyon, where my husband asked me to marry him and the next day we got married in Las Vegas.

We arrived back in England homeless but soon moved to Australia and bought our home in Figtree. I then had Alex and four years later Maggie, and almost three years ago we moved to Thirroul. It was at this time that I started my business Marketing Sense. I enjoy working with smaller social enterprises and not-for-profits such as the Thirroul Neighbourhood Centre in a pro-bono capacity. It was great to see my ideas for the centre are helping it better service the community. People can learn more about what I do by visiting marketingsense.com.au.