The 2023 gender leadership seminar in Budapest (© Getty Images)
More than 200 leading figures from the world of athletics came together in Budapest on Thursday (24) for the gender leadership seminar ‘Moving Mountains: One step at a time’, hosted by ASICS.
World Athletics continues to take huge strides towards gender equity in the sport, which was an important part of the widespread reforms introduced in 2016. In her seminar welcome, Stephanie Hightower, who is Chair of the Gender Leadership Taskforce, outlined some of the key milestones in the work undertaken so far, but reiterated how there is still more to be done.
That was a message echoed by Dr Brendon Stubbs, a senior researcher at King’s College London, later in the seminar as he discussed the ‘Move Every Mind’ study created to better understand what is driving a gender exercise gap, and what can be done to tackle it.
“Today is a reflection of the importance of gender equity to people at all levels of our sport, from all corners of the world,” said Hightower. “We have come a long way since the Gender Leadership Taskforce was established by President Sebastian Coe and we started on this journey seven years ago. I don’t think any of us could imagine just how much we would accomplish in such little time and the massive milestones we would hit.”
Outlining some of the milestones, Hightower added: “In 2016, President Coe led a campaign to change the sport’s constitution, making gender equity a key part of the new governance reform plan. In 2017, as a core component of this plan, the Gender Leadership Taskforce was created.
“One of the biggest targets of the plan was to achieve gender parity on the World Athletics Council. The targets that we put in place in were to be phased in, so we thought 30% gender parity on the World Athletics Council in 2019, then 40% in 2023 and finally we were hoping that we would have 50% parity in 2027.
“I am thrilled to say that last week, we reached our 2027 goal four years early – we have 13 men and 13 women that are on a fully gender balanced council. The first ever in a global sport.
“While this is a tremendous accomplishment, we still have work to do. We don’t want to lose the momentum. There are still many areas in our sport where there are big gaps in female representation, including in the administrative ranks and in our coaching ranks.
“We need to continue to work hard to provide the necessary education, support and policies to increase the amount of women in the pipeline for these roles because – as President Coe mentioned at Congress last week – we need to be an organisation that reflects the diversity of our sport, and the more diverse and inclusive the organisation, the better its decision making will be.”
‘Moving Mountains’ is the sport’s third gender leadership seminar, held alongside the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23. The second seminar, 'Out of the Blocks', was hosted in Oregon last year.
“When I walk into a room and I see standing room only, I know how far we have come in the last 10 years,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe. “Now, you’re here, you’re challenging us, you’re helping us to deliver, you’re helping us think differently and you’re actually helping us to become a far better organisation.”
Continuing discussions on the gender equality journey was a four-strong panel, moderated by Nuala Walsh, a behavioural scientist and CEO of MindEquity Consulting.
The panel featured coach Vicky Huyton, founder of the Female Coaching Network and co-host of the gender leadership podcast; Susan Kamau, Chief Administrative Officer at Athletics Kenya; Max Siegel, CEO at USA Track & Field; and Adille Sumariwalla, World Athletics Council Member.
As well as commenting on what has changed, the panel also exchanged ideas on how it might be possible to build on that movement.
“The one that stands out for me the most is the conversation around gender leadership,” said Huyton, discussing what has changed. “Sometimes, the conversation around gender, as with many other topics, can be polarised, but I think now people are realising that we do need more women at the top, whether that be leaders or coaches, it’s just that they don’t necessarily know how to get the women at the top.
“I think the biggest opportunity is actually changing the narrative. We hear all the time ‘there are a lack of women’, ‘there’s a lack of female coaches’, ‘a lack of female leaders’. But especially when we are talking about the elite end, and the conversations we are having now, there are a lot of skilled women that are more than capable of being CEOs, head coaches, performance directors. If we can flip it around, to rather than trying to find more women, actually look at the women that we already have, and give them the roles.
“What is happening in different countries is that those incredible talented women are having to create their own opportunities. It’s about saying, we do have the women – let’s now give them the opportunities they deserve.”
As well as looking at the world of leadership, the seminar touched on other opportunities within sport and participation.
Sharing insight into the ‘Move Every Mind’ study being conducted by ASICS, Stubbs explained how the top three reported reasons given as to why people exercise are mental wellbeing, physical health and self care. He added that while in the past year the proportion of women that engage in exercise at least once a week is 80%, 50% report that they are not doing enough exercise and would like support to do more.
Further information on the study can be found here.
Watch the seminar below.