Natalia Sánchez

Natalia Sánchez works where the rules of sport meet the people they are meant to protect. Born in Tucumán, Argentina, she holds Spanish and Argentine nationality and has lived in Uganda, in rainforest communities, in Bolivia's poorest regions and in areas recovering from armed conflict. She has been based in Copenhagen since 2025.

In 2009 she founded Empilar, a skateboarding club and skatepark in Pilar, Córdoba, free and open to everyone, incorporated as a civil association in 2014 and run without public funding ever since. From that ground-level work came Proyecto 50/50 for women's skateboarding, and later technical courses for coaches, judges and women leaders in nine countries in Africa and Latin America.

Since 2019 she has served World Skate, the international federation for skateboarding and roller sports, in voluntary and appointed roles: as Chair of its Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commission, and as Athletes Liaison at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and the World Skate Games Asunción 2026. She holds the MEMOS Executive Masters in Sport Organisations Management and is a trainer in the IOC Train the Trainers safeguarding programme.

Empiria Global, her independent practice, takes its name from the Greek empeiria: knowledge gained through lived experience.