It’s a Penalty is beginning an exciting new chapter as Founder and CEO Sarah de Carvalho hands over the leadership of the organisation to Philippa King. Here, Sarah reflects on twelve years of impact, while Philippa shares her vision for building on that legacy and taking It’s a Penalty forward.

A message from Sarah de Carvalho:Today marks the start of a new chapter for It’s a Penalty, as I hand over the role of CEO to Philippa King.

After twelve years leading It’s a Penalty, I’m feeling an enormous sense of gratitude. Founding the organisation and seeing it grow from an idea to harness the power of sport to raise awareness of human trafficking into a global movement has been one of the greatest privileges of my professional life.

I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together – 25 campaigns across 15 countries, working through some of the world’s biggest sporting events to turn awareness into practical action. More than 17,000 survivors have been connected to support services and prevention resources, and more than 12,750 hospitality professionals have been trained to recognise the signs of exploitation and safely report concerns. I’m hugely grateful to the incredible team, board, partners, and supporters who have made this possible, and to everyone who has believed in the mission.

It feels particularly special to be handing over to Philippa. She has been part of the It’s a Penalty journey for many years, first as a Board member, and then most recently as Deputy CEO. I have every confidence in her leadership and am excited to see what she and the team achieve in the years ahead.

I’m taking a short sabbatical before returning in a part-time strategic advisory role, where I’ll continue to support Philippa and the organisation, while leading the development of our Major Events Toolkit to help prevent human trafficking and exploitation around major sporting events and large-scale events. Alongside this, I’ll be building my work beyond It’s a Penalty through strategic advisory, consultancy and Non-Executive Director roles.

For now, simply: thank you. It has been an extraordinary honour to lead It’s a Penalty, and I’m excited for what comes next.

A message from Philippa King: Having been part of It’s a Penalty for a number of years, , it is an enormous honour to be taking on the role of CEO, effective September 1st 2026.

Throughout that time, what has always stood out to me is the organisation’s ability to bring people together around a shared purpose and harness the extraordinary power of sport to create change. What this team has achieved is truly remarkable: delivering campaigns around some of the world’s biggest sporting events, building incredible partnerships across sectors, and seeing our work adopted and amplified by cities, states, governments and businesses around the world.

I feel incredibly fortunate to be taking It’s a Penalty into its next chapter, building on everything Sarah has created and working with such a brilliant and committed team.

Our strategy for the coming years is ambitious. We’ll continue to harness major sporting events, including the Super Bowl LXI, our first campaign in Africa around AFCON 2027, and looking ahead to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, while growing our consultancy and training work with businesses.

I believe business has an incredibly important role to play as a force for good in tackling modern slavery and human trafficking. As expectations around human rights and responsible business continue to grow, there is a real opportunity to help companies move beyond compliance and embed meaningful prevention across their operations and supply chains. Our work with Emirates’ HR and Procurement teams has already shown us what this can look like in practice, and it’s an area we’re excited to build on.

Most importantly, we’ll continue to do what It’s a Penalty has always done best: bring people and organisations together to create practical, lasting change.

I’m hugely excited about what comes next.