Sherrill Nixon is the CEO of Australian Schools Plus and a not-for-profit leader focused on driving greater equity in Australian education. She works across schools, education sectors, philanthropy and government to help ensure that a child’s background or postcode does not determine their opportunities at school.

In Schools Plus’ second decade, Sherrill is leading an ambitious strategy to tackle educational disadvantage at greater scale. This includes partnering with schools, education sectors and philanthropy to identify and strengthen what works, taking effective approaches beyond individual schools to reach communities, regions and states, and using evidence and insights from this work to influence policy and practice at systems level.

Sherrill has been part of Schools Plus since its start-up phase, joining as its second employee and playing a key role in building the organisation, its programs and its philanthropic partnerships. Schools Plus has now supported more than 630,000 children across 1,800 schools.

Before becoming CEO, Sherrill was Director of Donor Relations, leading the fundraising team to raise more than $60 million and building deep, long-term partnerships with major corporates, foundations and philanthropists including Salesforce, Google and the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Sherrill joined Schools Plus following an extensive career in Australian media, where she worked as a journalist, editor and newsroom leader with organisations including Fairfax Media and Australian Associated Press.