Diversity in the boardroom

In the run up to International Women’s Day 2015 (Sunday 8 March), Governance Officer, Rob Tate, looks forward to our Involvement in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Women on Sports’ Boards event.

Taking place next week is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s second event aimed at promoting women in sport.

This second event follows on the heels of a very successful inaugural event held at Lord’s Cricket Ground last October. That debut event featured panel sessions on women in sports media and the value of women’s sport, as well as a presentation on the challenges of being a female tennis coach by Great Britain Fed Cup team captain, Judy Murray.

Next week’s event is once again supported by the Minister for Sport, Helen Grant MP and will be hosted by former England Cricket captain, Ashes winner and Head of England Women’s Cricket at the ECB, Clare Connor.

With a specific focus on the topic of women on boards, this event features a panel discussion on the subject as well as a session on board skills for sport sponsored by the Sport and Recreation Alliance. This session will be led by independent governance consultant Amanda Bennett, a former Head of Governance at UK Sport and Governance Advisor to the Alliance, who is herself a board member at Sport Wales.

The idea of encouraging more women, from a range of sectors, to seek involvement in sports governance fits in well with the Alliance’s own objectives for governance in the sport and recreation sector.

The bedrock of this work stems from our flagship framework for governance - The Voluntary Code of Good Governance. Using the Code, we want to promote the need for increased diversity on the boards of sport and recreation organisations.

An effective board requires a diverse array of skills, and often the most effective way to fulfil these requirements is to seek individuals with experience in sectors outside of sport and recreation. By sourcing board members with specific skills, an organisation benefits by developing an understanding of and being able to receive guidance on a range of topics; from finance, to governance, to marketing and communications.

As well as representing a diversity of skills, it is also important that the makeup of the board should represent the diversity of the organisation’s membership. Achieving diversity of representation across a range of factors, not just gender, will help towards ensuring the membership is properly represented as well as assisting in the positive external perception of the board.

By establishing the Alliance Directors Club we are aiming to encourage a greater range of people to consider involvement in sports governance.

The Directors Club offers an opportunity for those currently working in sport and those working in other sectors but with an interest in sport, to network, build relationships across the sector and get a better idea of the issues affecting sports governance in the sector. The hope is that through engaging with these professionals via the Alliance Directors Club we can help boards recruit the right mix of individuals, thereby developing the diversity of leadership throughout the sector as a whole.

The importance of diversity - whether of skills, gender or any other dimension - cannot be underestimated in good governance. It is for this reason we so wholeheartedly support events such as the DCMS Women on Sports’ Boards, and look forward to encouraging greater participation by women in sports governance at all levels.

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