Louise Thornton is the Director of Events for the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.

It is the biggest international sporting event to land on these shores and in August of this year saw over 30,000 US-based fans arrive in for the Notre Dame Navy game.

The value beyond sport to the ‘soft power’ credentials of Ireland is enormous and the US Ireland CEO Club lunch on the day before is perhaps one of the most influential gatherings in the city.

Thornton has been working on the project of College Football since 2011 and takes the lead on all things logistics including global ticketing distribution and the Stadium operations for the game.

She was part of the team that won the Sports Business of the Year at this year’s Irish Sport Industry awards.

Before this she worked as Sales and Events Manager at Luttrellstown Castle.

She is the 14th of 20 new Entries to this list for 2023.

See who else has been named on the list alongside Louise Thornton by clicking on the image below.

 

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See who else has been included so far on the list for 2023

 

 

This is the 11th edition of our Sport for Business listing of 50 Women of Influence in Irish Sport.

Read more about the list and nominate who you think should be a part of it in 2023.

We are proud to publish the list in partnership with AIG, an organisation that has pledged its commitment to equality in its partnerships with Gaelic Games, Tennis, Golf, and more, for whom “Effort is Equal” and with whom we have ambitious plans to extend the reach of this annual celebration of the Women who are making a difference.

This year’s list will be drawn as before from the worlds of leadership, partnership, storytelling, and performance.

We began this journey in 2013 when challenged that we would never be able to produce a list of twenty Influential Women in Irish Sport. The 20 stretched to 30, then 40 and 50 and it still does not do justice to the talent that is out there.

This year once more, to keep things fresh we will step up again, raising the number of new entrants to at least 40 percent of fresh names from last year.

It will be the hardest part to have some names replaced but if it was too easy it would be of less value.

The list we will build over the coming weeks is a snapshot of those women who are making a mark on how sport is played, consumed, grown, and delivered.

They are part of making the role of women in sport unexceptional by being exceptional in what they do.