Re-introducing George Ayoub, Director of Development

Our new Director of Development, George Ayoub, is bringing fresh ideas to his vital new position which is helping to move the College forward. As Director of Development, his job is to build relationships and raise funds to bring much-needed projects to fruition. These projects will provide facilities and scholarships for current and future generations of Santa Sabina students.

For the last seven years George has been our popular Director of Sport and Co-curricular Activities. His change to the field of development is new for us but not new for him – in the past he was, for five years, the Director of Development at Trinity School, setting up their fundraising program from scratch. His top achievement there was raising enough funds to build an underground pool and new gymnasium.

Revitalising Santa Sabina’s annual appeal is George’s first ‘target’ for 2023. ‘Our whole community should be supporting the College for their sons and daughters’, he says.

‘My job is to connect with the whole community and encourage everyone to engage in some way, whatever is possible for them individually’.

Apart from the Veritas Annual Appeal and raising funds for scholarships, he also has his sights set on several longer term projects: a covered outdoor learning space on the Primary Campus, improvements to our swimming pool, and ultimately an extensive new sports precinct with state-of-the-art facilities.

He has been delighted to find that our culture of giving is already strong – ex-students have been providing generously for scholarships for several years. Business sponsorship is a new avenue George is also looking at for future support.

George’s background is as a teacher of History and English and he continues this aspect of his career in 2023 as a teacher of the Year 11 IB subject, Theory of Knowledge.

‘This is a great subject which encompasses all disciplines and where we get to discuss things happening in the world’, he says.

‘Our lessons are very much discussion based – students lead, the teacher leads – either way it’s a very good way of gaining knowledge.’

Well known to many of us is George’s career in Rugby which has punctuated his teaching career and involved high profile professional work for Rugby Australia and Japan Rugby. He was Australia’s top TMO – Television Match Official – also known as the video referee. Prior to this, he was the Rugby NSW Referees Manager.

Already well-connected in our community, George is the husband and father of Santa Sabina students (Barbara Ryan, Class of 1980 and Olivia Ayoub, Class of 2020) and he has a long history with our families having grown up locally, attending St Patrick’s College and remaining in the Strathfield community to bring up his own family.

When not at work, George works daily on his fitness, watches Rugby (of course) and is also a volunteer surf lifesaver, rostered every three weeks on a beach on NSW’s Central Coast. In a surprising escape from his sporting interests, George recently completed a Master’s in International Security, focused on cyber security and counter terrorism, which we hope will never be needed! 

Advancing the interests of our students and community is always at the forefront of George’s mind – give him a call on 9745 0232 if you would like to help him provide the best we can for our students.