A recent expat transplant to Singapore, Sarah Clements, vice president of Tennis – Asia, Lagardère Sports, has been a fixture in sport and entertainment marketing over the last four years. With her calm and soft-spoken demeanour, she deftly manages relationships with the various high-profile stakeholders in a complex but rewarding environment.
“Whenever Christmas and the festive season come around, I always look forward to celebrating and spending time with my family and close friends back in Melbourne. As my husband, two sons and myself are based in Singapore, it is a very precious time for us to reunite with our loved ones,” Sarah Clements shares.
“It’s summer in December in Melbourne, so I usually bring my family down to the beach during Christmas. We have a delicious barbeque, with fresh salads and divine Victorian wines. After that we head to the beach for games and more chilling, enjoying the moment and having fun with loved ones.”
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“I like to keep it casual but I make sure my guests are surrounded with fresh food, good wine and great company. I love cooking, but unfortunately, I don’t get much time to do it in Singapore. So, whenever I am back in Melbourne, I roll up my sleeves to cook for my loved ones. I like to whip up delicious salads. We keep decorations simple, but we have a great Christmas tree that we pull out of the storage every year and update the decorations. This year, we are going for a sustainability theme, as my youngest son is particularly passionate about this,” she adds.
Priceless gifts
Asked if there’s a gift close to her heart, Sarah Clements singles out her dad’s holy communion medal. “He gave it to me as an encouragement to follow my dreams and come to Singapore. Growing up, my parents always told me that there’s no limit to what I can achieve as long as I put my heart to it, and that I should chase after opportunities. But because I enjoy a very close relationship with my family, it was challenging for me to have to separate from them. It didn’t help that my dad was not in the pinkest of health then, so it was truly a difficult period. Even then, my dad believed I should not hold back, and blessed me with his very personal and precious medal,” she says.
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“Since then, I always wear his medal whenever I travel. It reminds me of his love for me. These days, I also wear it together with my grandmother’s amethyst pendant and St Brigid’s cross, and the amethyst ring my parents gave me for my 21st birthday. It contains another amethyst stone from when we lived in Africa. They had it re-set for me,” she explains.
Life for her is not driven by the material. “We should do unto others how we want others to treat us. Hence, the idea of giving back is very intuitive to us. This Christmas, we have decided that instead of buying one another gifts, we will pool together money and donate to a charity instead. Since my sons will also be part of this initiative, we hope it would be a valuable opportunity to impart the values of giving and sharing.”
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