The 2021 Sport for Business Women in Sport Conference took place on Thursday, March 25th, 2021 in a virtual setting.
We had over 350 attendees registered from no less than 15 countries across Europe and around the world.
Our line up of speakers included
- Lynne Cantwell, Chair of the Sport Ireland Women in Sport Committee and recently appointed Head of Performance for South Africa Women’s rugby;
- Sue Anstiss MBE one of the UK’s most prominent advocates for Women in Sport and CEO of Fearless Women
- Glen Killane, Executive Director for Sport at the European Broadcasting Union
- Niamh Fahey, Captain of Liverpool FC and capped 92 times for the Republic of Ireland
- Sinéad McNulty, CEO of the Camogie Association
- Lisa Clancy, CEO of Clansult and Director of Paralympics Ireland
- Sarah O’Shea, CEO of SOS Consulting and Secretary of the Olympic Federation of Ireland
We will be sharing videos from the different session over the coming days but here is a brief highlights review of a morning that was inspiring and hopefully empowering for those who joined us.
Here is the session with Lynne Cantwell, Chair of the Sport Ireland Women in Sport Committee and soon to be heading for South Africa as Head of High Performance with SARugby’s Women’s programme.
We precede Lynne’s contribution with ‘Crazy’ from Nike, another inspirational clip showing just what is possible.
Lynne talks to us about the importance of recognising and grasping femininity as a strength, of ensuring that we create sport that works for women and is not necessarily just taken from what was designed by men, for men.
It was a great contribution and we hope you like what was said…
And here is the session with Sue Anstiss, MBE on the importance of visibility, and on how the momentum behind Women’s sport in football and around the world needs to be maintained as we emerge from lockdown.
Glen Killane, the Executive Director of Sport at the European Broadcasting Union joined us to show how it is not only the right thing to do but also a winning business decision to ramp up coverage of Women’s sport.
Lisa Clancy and Sarah O’Shea spoke to us about the Leadership programme they ran for Swim Ireland, funded by Sport Ireland, which has seen over 100 women complete a six week programme that is creating a greater pool of talent to take up leadership positions.
Coming up we will share the sessions with Liverpool FC Captain Niamh Fahey and CEO of the Camogie Association Sinéad McNulty.
Here are some of the thoughts that those who were there shared across social media.
☕️ Coffee in hand & pen ? ready! ???Tuned in to the #sfbWomeninSport conference today hosted by @robhartnett @SportforBusines
⭐️Great line of speakers including @sueanstiss @sarahosheasos @cantwelll @mcnultys @clancylisa #sport #challengeyourself #galwayraces #collaboration pic.twitter.com/09vhgj84oH
— Sinéad Cassidy (@sineadcas) March 25, 2021
Behind the scenes as we prepare for this morning’s #SfBWomenInSport Conference. https://t.co/XonHfhizra pic.twitter.com/p2u9BuHpAe
— Sport for Business (@SportforBusines) March 25, 2021
#GaillimhAbú! Great to have Galwegian @Niamh_Fahey1 at the #sfbwomeninsport conference morning ?? @SportforBusines
⚽️ Niamh is currently playing with @LFC as Captain of the Women’s Soccer Team #Sport #sfbwomeninsport #GalwayShero #Proud #GalwayRaces pic.twitter.com/SPGEubQskZ
— Galway Races (@Galway_Races) March 25, 2021
Glued to the @SportforBusines Women in Sport Conference that I haven’t been able to leave the car park to drive home ? Well done Rob on coordinating another fab event ??#SfBWomeninSport pic.twitter.com/2PJuJZfvrS
— Elaine Cahill (@Elaine__cahill) March 25, 2021
Lots of learnings from @sueanstiss ??
“Change will only happen if we can engage and work with our male allies”
“It’s about visibility. Sharing the stories of the sports doing well, to get others on board. Visbility is where it starts for me”@SportforBusines #SFBWomenInSport pic.twitter.com/HWLXgVH5xR
— Mary McGuire (@MaryMcGuire7) March 25, 2021
“It’s not okay for middle aged white guys like me to say everything’s okay…we’ve been saying everything’s okay for too long. It’s not okay. We have to get behind it. We have to support it. We need to continue the forward momentum”
Glen Killane @SportforBusines #sfbwomeninsport pic.twitter.com/1cHPtJvqVf— Mary McGuire (@MaryMcGuire7) March 25, 2021
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