Beyond the bridle: Drynan's UK move

When Charlotte Drynan decided to combine the marketing and communications skills she acquired at Bond University with her lifelong passion for equestrian, there was only one place she looked - at the iconic Badminton Estate in the Cotswolds.

In May, fresh from graduating with a double degree in International Relations and Business, with a major in marketing and communications, Drynan will join the marketing team for the five-star Badminton Horse Trials.

In the equestrian world, Badminton is sacred ground. The world’s best combinations converge on rolling English parkland to test themselves across dressage, cross country and showjumping. It is tradition, theatre and elite sport stitched together.

For Drynan it will tick off a personal milestone and serve as a launchpad for her professional long game - Brisbane 2032, when the Olympic equestrian disciplines will be staged in her hometown of Toowoomba.

But long before Olympics or five-star marketing campaigns entered the frame, Drynan arrived at Bond with a very clear ambition.

She was going to work in the not-for-profit sector.

As a Vice Chancellor Elite Scholar, she stepped onto campus with a strong sense of responsibility to give back.

“I initially chose to study business because I wanted to work in the not-for-profit sector,” she says. “I’ve always been really drawn to NGOs, particularly around women’s rights and development.”

That ambition quickly turned into action.

In 2023, she joined BUSA as Wellness Director and helped revive Bond Aid’s international placement program after a six-year hiatus. In partnership with Nepali NGO PSD Nepal, Charlotte led months of planning before taking 16 Bond students to rural Gorkha in 2024.

Planning began almost a year in advance. The relationship with PSD Nepal pre-dated COVID, but had been dormant since 2018. Rebuilding it required care.

“It was really important to me that we weren’t just stepping in thinking we knew what was needed,” she says.
“The NGO had been working in the community for years. They’d been waiting for a university partner post-COVID. It was about rebuilding that relationship properly.”

Students undertook language and cultural training in Kathmandu before travelling deeper into the hills of Gorkha for placement. The experience was immersive with long days, steep terrain, unfamiliar rhythms of life.

For Drynan, standing in the Himalayas with a group of Bond students, it crystallised something. Development is not about grand gestures. It is about listening first.

“It truly made it possible working with the NGO,” she says. “I was very conscious we weren’t there to ‘save’ anyone. We were there to support what was already happening.”

Back home, another commitment remained constant.

After volunteering at Sony Camp since high school, she became a convener of Bond’s annual Bond Children’s Holiday Camp in 2024 and 2025, delivered in partnership with Sony Foundation Australia.

Held just days before Christmas, the camp provides respite for children with disability and their families across the Gold Coast and regional Queensland. As Buddies and Runners Convener, Drynan coordinated up to 80 student volunteers - selecting, training and managing the team responsible for ensuring each child experienced “the best three days imaginable”.

“To see everyone step up that close to Christmas was amazing,” she says. “But what really stays with you is watching families connect. A lot of them don’t have strong networks of people going through similar experiences. By the end of camp, those connections are real and lasting.”

Packing up on Christmas Eve, exhausted and elated, she realised the throughline between Nepal and Sony Camp was community, whether in the Himalayas or on the Gold Coast.

Yet somewhere between those two worlds, her ambitions broadened.

International Relations had opened new intellectual doors. Study tours to Japan for Model United Nations in 2024 immersed her in diplomacy and negotiation. In Fiji, she joined discussions with Fiji Rugby focused on women’s empowerment through sport. In India, she studied marketing and global business at OP Jindal University.

Each experience layered something new.

“In Fiji, we were looking at sport development for women’s empowerment,” she says. “That’s what really sparked my interest in sport diplomacy, how sport can be used as a tool for development and international engagement.”

The idea that sport could operate as a diplomatic bridge connecting communities, elevating women’s participation, shaping national identity began to take hold.

And for someone who had grown up on a cattle farm, who had dabbled in eventing, dressage, show horse and showjumping, that intersection felt personal.

She jokes she was known as “the horse girl of Bond”, a nickname handed to her after she sat for her Vice Chancellor Elite Scholar interviews via zoom from her horse float at Nationals. Competition then took a back seat during her degree, but the sport never did.

That intersection became tangible when she secured an internship with Equestrian Queensland.

Working alongside CEO Briston Toft and Operations Manager Samantha Duffy, Drynan contributed to projects building towards Brisbane 2032 - exploring logistics, legacy planning and the broader diplomatic opportunity of hosting the world in regional Queensland.

Toowoomba’s confirmation as the Olympic equestrian host venue made the work intensely personal.

“To have the Olympics potentially in your backyard, that’s huge,” she says. “There’s such a big opportunity there, not just in sport but in how we position ourselves internationally.”

She examined how Australia could strengthen its sport diplomacy narrative through equestrian, a sport steeped in heritage, but increasingly conscious of welfare standards, sustainability and social licence.

Another focus was pathways for off-the-track thoroughbreds transitioning into new equestrian disciplines. Her own horse Ernest Desire (Ernie), is an off-the-track thoroughbred turned showjumper, a living example of the potential within those programs.

“Queensland does it really well,” she says. “But there’s an opportunity to streamline information and support nationally so it’s more accessible.”

Communications became her lever.

She launched Beyond the Bridle, a quarterly, member-driven publication celebrating Queensland’s equestrian community from elite riders to everyday athletes balancing careers, families and early mornings in the stable.

Her first edition featured fellow Bondy Kate Kyros, then the number one ranked U21 dressage rider in the world. But the publication was as much about grassroots riders as headline names.

“Equestrian is difficult to maintain if you’re not aiming to be a professional,” she says. “You’re juggling work, life, family and then horses on top of that. But we all do it because we love the horses. That partnership is what keeps people in the sport.”

She also supported communications for the Queensland Show Jumping Club State Titles, working alongside photographers and club leadership to elevate storytelling at the grassroots level.

Badminton now offers a global vantage point.

Europe remains the epicentre of the equestrian industry. At Badminton, Drynan will see first-hand how one of the sport’s most prestigious events builds narrative, engages members and balances tradition with modern marketing demands.

For a young communications graduate, it is rare air.

Afterwards, she will return home to resume competitive showjumping after a three-year hiatus, to continue editing Beyond the Bridle, and to contribute to the long runway towards Brisbane 2032.

Bond, she says, shifted her sense of scale.

“I was surrounded by so much determination and positivity. It made me realise what’s possible,” she says. “It’s empowered me to dream bigger than I thought I ever could.”