KLASSics KONFIDENTIAL
Meet The Wildlife Ranger Michelle Campbell Alumna 1998 - 2001 Director and Private Guide Wild Wonderful World, South Africa
“Not a day goes by where I am not thankful to be in the bush surrounded by incredible wildlife, and I feel proud to have broken through the corporate mould and followed my dreams.” Like many of my peers at Alice Smith, I moved a lot as a child – I was born in South Africa, moved to Thailand, Malaysia (1998 - 2001), France, England, UAE and then back to South Africa, where I am still based today. My time at Alice Smith without a doubt set the precedent for my later years, where competitions in sport and academics alike formed a solid foundation on which to grow. I often think back with fond memories to my time spent training for athletics at the Maybank stadium and hours spent in the pool under instruction from Mr Lee! After university, I worked as an economist for HSBC in Dubai, covering the Arab Spring and Middle East uprisings – an exciting time to be in the field of macroeconomics. It was my passion for wildlife and the African bush however, that fuelled a change, and I retrained as a professional safari guide back in South Africa. I found guiding far more aligned with my personal interests and it allowed me the unique opportunity to educate people about the complexities of nature and the vast number of threats to its very delicate balance. Not a day goes by where I am not thankful to be in the bush surrounded by incredible wildlife, and I feel proud to have broken through the corporate mould and followed my dreams. I am more determined than ever to help protect and conserve wildlife in Africa for our future generations. Do share with us more about your wildlife conservation journey... I run a company called Wild Wonderful World, and my journey to getting here is rather unusual. In 2017, fuelled by the desire to do more to help save wildlife, myself and my partner Grant quit our jobs as safari guides and embarked on a conservation expedition across Africa. Understanding the threats to wildlife in our home country and what was being done to mitigate them was one thing, but what about the rest of Africa? There was only one way to find out, and that was to get out there, get involved on the ground and experience for ourselves what conservation in Africa really meant. It was quite funny, at the time, watching the reaction of people when we told them we were leaving to go live in our Land Rover for a year.
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