Sadleir received her award from Her Excellency The Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro, the Governor-General of New Zealand at a reception hosted at New Zealand House in Paris. 

Sadleir was awarded the NZOM in the King's Birthday Honours earlier this year in recognition for services to sports governance and women. 

Born in Scotland and raised in Canada, Sadleir made New Zealand her home and represented her adopted country at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games in synchronised swimming, before competing at the Edinburgh 1986 Commonwealth Games, where she won the bronze medal in the women's solo event.

Sadleir then moved into sports administration, where she led the establishment of the New Zealand Academy of Sport network in the late 1990s before becoming general manager of Sport and Recreation New Zealand (now Sport New Zealand) from 2000-2006.

She has held directorships with both Sport New Zealand and High-Performance Sport New Zealand, and been a director of the International Association of Elite Sport Training Centres, a board member of the New Zealand Swimming Federation and a member of the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) Athletes' Commission.

In 2017, she moved to Dublin to take up the role of General Manager of Women's Rugby at World Rugby, where she significantly boosted the sport's global profile.

In 2021, Sadleir became the Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation taking the helm ahead of the successful Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, delivering the new 10-year strategy of the Commonwealth Games Federation and overseeing the renewed vision for the Commonwealth Sport Movement.