Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York—Full Bio
If you haven’t listened to my interview with Sarah Ferguson and her collabo-writing partner, Marguerite Kaye, do it now! It’s fantastic. I wanted to share the Duchess’s full bio here, as sent to me by her PR team, because it’s pretty darned impressive. I’d like to add to it that she’s a kind, generous woman and I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with her.
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Sarah, Duchess of York is a bestselling author, philanthropist and public speaker.
For over 30 years, The Duchess has been committed to children’s and wellness causes with a focus on education. She has travelled the globe to witness the projects firsthand and has personally raised significant donations for causes that share her passion for change. In 1993 she founded Children in Crisis to provide education to forgotten children around the world, and the charity has educated over 1.4 million children. The Duchess was a founder patron of Street Child when the two charities merged, recently stepping down from this role when the charities integrated to focus on her recently launched own international non-profit, Sarah’s Trust (www.sarahstrust.com). In its first project, at the start of the pandemic, The Duchess mobilised an ongoing national response to benefit over 150,000 NHS, care homes, hospice and emergency services staff.
At the same time, the Duchess launched a new daily YouTube show ‘Storytime with Fergie and Friends’, reading a series of different children’s books, sometimes with guests, to help keep children entertained during lockdown. To date, there have been 20 million views and these stories have been distributed to children’s hospitals throughout the UK and US, accompanied by messages personally recorded by The Duchess. For this series, The Duchess has recently been given the ‘Special Recognition of Services to Storytelling’ award by the Montessori Group.
In the early 1990s, The Duchess and her charity supported Croatian and Bosnian refugee families when they were going through the heartbreak Ukraine is facing now, personally delivering aid . Now, in response to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, she has spearheaded an ongoing campaign through Sarah’s Trust to donate thousands of items of aid to refugees on the Ukraine/Polish border. She has visited Poland three times this year, hosted by the Mayor of Warsaw, to meet refugees fleeing their homes, give support and spread word of the incredible support given by Polish people. She has returned several times to the Upper Silesia area where she met a choir of blind students who had fled Eastern Ukraine at the outbreak of war. She has funded a recording studio for them, organised a concert in Poland and recently a Christmas visit to London.
The Duchess and The Trust continue to offer and deliver aid on request from colleagues on the ground. Only in the last few weeks, a large delivery of solar powered batteries for portable re-charging and lights, has been sent to impacted regions in both Ukraine and Poland.
In May she visited Zagreb, Croatia, meeting with Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic and offering further support to families displaced by the war. As Ambassador for the Montessori Group, they discussed the Emergency Container Home Shelters donated to refugee families; and the support they are giving to children’s day care centres. The Duchess has personally donated thousands of toys.
The Duchess has published over 70 books including two autobiographies and other titles dealing with health, empowerment, history, art, as well as novels and children's stories. Her debut historical novel Her Heart for a Compass was published globally in 2022 by Harper Collins and was a Sunday Times bestseller. Her second historical novel ‘A Most Intriguing Lady’ has been published by Harper Collins to critical acclaim in the US and UK in March this year, and is again a Sunday Times Bestseller (no. 5). The Duchess also shares her love of historical romances on her social channels through her Historical Book Club, which she hosts in conjunction with her UK publisher, Mills & Boon.
Other books include Demon’s Land - recently awarded the prestigious ‘Literary Titan’ - the first in a series of three young adult books co-written with Michelle Worthington.
A twenty-two book series for young readers has been signed with Serenity Press in Australia and New Zealand including The Enchanted Oak Tree, Genie Gems and Arthur Fantastic, Charlie, Blue and Larry Lamp Post (awarded the Triton Gold Award 2022), What’s Under Your Hat, Granny; A Gift of Kindness, the first two books in the Puddle Boots Series – Puddle Boots and Puddle Boots Christmas, and Budgie the Little Helicopter Rescues Kubbie the Koala. Three books from the original Helping Hands series have been re-released. Other previous children’s books include the series of Budgie the Little Helicopter, adapted into a highly successful animated series on US primetime Fox and the children’s book Tea for Ruby, published by Simon and Schuster which had it’s debut at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Other books include What I know now: Lessons Learnt The Hard Way; and a five book children’s series about the adventures of Little Red. The Duchess retraced Queen Victoria’s travels abroad to co-write Travels with Queen Victoria as well as Osborne House.
The Duchess is co-founder of Vestapol films, a new and recently announced independent production house based in Paris for which she has teamed up with award –winning Director Mark Gill and Cyril Cadars (The Open). She is also a Co-Founder of Coat Productions, a British film development company, which is soon to announce its first project.
In 2019, The Duchess presented a one-hour documentary on Princess Louise, the mother of Prince Albert, for ZDF television, with Dr Ulrike Grunewald. The documentary was enthusiastically received in Germany.
The Duchess conceived and produced alongside Martin Scorsese, Young Victoria a period romance based on the early life of Queen Victoria starring Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend and scripted by Julian Fellowes. Young Victoria was released in the US, UK, Australia, France amongst other territories and it was the closing film at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2009. The film received an Oscar for Best Costume Design.
The Duchess is also a longstanding Ambassador for the Sardinia Film Festival.
The subject of countless media interviews herself, The Duchess has also found success as a reporter and presenter. In America, she has been a special correspondent for NBC's Today show and has presented specials and documentaries on ABC, FOX, and CNN. In Britain, she has presented and co-produced specials for ITV, BBC, and Sky TV. She has served as guest editor on BBC Radio 4 Today programme and has regularly contributed to BBC Radio 2’s primetime lifestyle show Steve Wright. The documentary series Finding Sarah debuted in 2011 on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In 1998 the Duchess made a cameo appearance in the final of Season 4 of the American sitcom Friends.
The Duchess is a regular speaker and panellist at book festivals, and global forums focusing on subjects including ‘philanthrepreneurship’ (in 2016 she was named as a visiting Professor of ‘Philanthrepreneurship’ at the University of Huddersfield), women in business, women and wellness, human rights, and the need to help more children in the world’s most underprivileged places into education. She has received numerous awards for her philanthropic work, including The Order of the Smile, an international award given by children to adults distinguished by their love and care for children.
For 10 years she was the highly successful and longest-running US spokesperson for Weight Watchers International, taking the company from 6 to 32 million members to IPO during her tenure. She distinguished herself as a wellness advocate and a spokesperson for the American Heart Association. As the Global Ambassador for The British Heart Foundation, The Duchess has led a number of campaigns, highlighting women and heart disease.
The Duchess is a Global Ambassador for The Perfect World Foundation, a non-profit organization formed to protect wildlife in crisis, through direct aid and spreading awareness. She is Co-Founder of the Montessori Group Education for the Future Fund and Chair of the International Montessori Ambassadors Group. She is Global Ambassador to the Kindness Research Foundation, and an Ambassador for the Puglia area of Italy. She is a passionate supporter of The Teenage Cancer Trust, opening nearly all of their 28 units nationwide over the past 30 years. She supports the work of Teen Cancer America; and Patronages include Julia’s House children’s hospice, Kirkwood Hospice, Ruddi’s Retreat, The Children’s Air Ambulance, The Children’s Literacy Charity, The International Dyslexia Association, Mullany Fund, and the Indian Head Injury Fund. She champions Key to Freedom, a business structure initiative set up to support the Women’s Interlink Foundation (WIF) by giving vulnerable young women a platform to sell their products. WIF works across West Bengal, India, helping these women develop skills to earn an income.
In 2019, the Duchess helped launch The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, of which she is Patron, and campaigned for the implementation of Natasha’s Law, requiring food businesses to provide full ingredient and allergen labeling on prepackaged foods.
She has recently returned from Albania, at the invitation of IsraAid - an emergency relief NGO who have mounted an incredible evacuation effort of refugees - where she met extraordinary people – a top female judge, women leaders in their fields, doctors, long serving military, families – all forced to leave Afghanistan.
The Duchess is mother to Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie of York and is a grandmother three times over. She is lovingly referred to as “Super Gran” for her passionate dedication to the hearts of children all over the world. She lives in Windsor with five Norfolk terriers and two corgis.