Reflecting on the ‘Women in Everything’ series

The Women in Sport group allows students and academics from our Institute for Sport Business to engage, network and discuss how we can decrease the gender disparities that lie in the sport industry.

This virtual series ran three events across three weeks and involved panellists from all over the world, engaging almost 130 guests. The three events took place on different dates within March, the first of these being on International Women’s Day (8 March).

The Women in Sport event featured three influential female panellists within the sporting world. This insightful event saw the discussion of topics such as entering the sports industry as a female, achievements, male allies, female coaches and the  importance of role models amongst others. Some important quotations from the event include:

“Sport will always be a reflection of society but arguably the largest vehicle and opportunity for societal change”

“We need to not see other women as competition and instead stand on each others shoulders.”

The next event, held on the 17 March, focussed on Women in Entrepreneurship and featured another expert female panel. In this event, these fantastic female entrepreneurs discussed the process behind coming up with new business ideas, having a good team and shared vision, securing funding and building businesses that promote equality and representation.

The final event of the ‘Women in Everything’ series took place on the 25 March and looked at Women in Leadership. Our panel was made up of inspiring women who work within influential leadership roles within different industries:

There were numerous insightful discussions within this event, including talking about leadership styles, managing gender disparities in the workplace, knowing female worth and not being afraid to step into opportunities and importance of role models amongst others. From this event, some memorable quotations include:

‘The main selling point is ourselves, take ownership of your story’

“(To be a good leader you should) share credit with the team when things go well and step up to take responsibility if things don't go to plan.”

When reflecting upon this successful series of events, Institute for Sport Business Director Dr Andrea Geurin said:

“I was so impressed with the leadership displayed by our Women in Sport students in organising this highly successful series. The speakers at each of the three series were extremely inspiring, and by holding the events virtually we were able to involve a truly global cohort of speakers and audience members. I am proud of the Women in Sport group for the legacy they have begun at Loughborough London and look forward to our future cohorts building on the efforts of this year’s students.”

Yoana Nikolova is a current student and member of the Women in Sport group who helped to organise this event. In speaking of the event series, Yoana has said:

“Although online, this series gave us the opportunity to hear from inspirational women all over the world. As many of the panellists were from the sports industry, it also gave me the opportunity to understand where we need to do more for women in the industry as well as teaching me to be unapologetic about who I am. All of our speakers and guests were incredibly engaging and it just made for really good discussions with a lot of key takeaways for myself, our female students, academics and our male allies."

Women in Sport group member, current student and Student Ambassador, Komal Ghai, added:

"The 'Women in Everything' series was a great showcase of what women have to offer in the world of sport. The panelists really helped us to understand their journey into a male dominated industry and how to stand up against the culture of the industry which is changing now! The engagement from the attendees was great and really helped the session turn into more of a conversation which helped paint a picture of what it is like to be working in sport for female students who will just be entering the world of sport!"

Thank you to our amazing panellists for their participation in the event and to the Women in Sport group for organising such an insightful event celebrating successful women and generating so many insightful discussions.