Kate Richardson-walsh Explores Culture Within Sport And Business
The first Sport Industry Dining event of the year took place last Thursday 10th May at 28°-50° by Night in Marylebone, London. The evening saw leading figures from the sport industry come together for an evening of fine dining and informal networking with wine provided by Sporting Wine Club.
Former Olympic Gold medal winning women’s hockey captain Kate Richardson-Walsh was the special guest, delivering an informative and entertaining Q&A session, exploring the crossovers between sport and business culture, in addition to the state of women’s sport and its continued battle for equality.
Richardson-Walsh, capped a record 375 times for her country, told the audience that, although the Gold medal won at the 2016 Rio Olympics was a highlight of her career, it was the Bronze medal that the team achieved four years earlier which was crucial to success in Brazil, particularly how the core crux of that group remained throughout.
“10 of us [stayed in the team from 2012 to 2016]. Danny Kerry was the coach and he was vital to our success. He empowered the group to build our own culture, to build up our own programme. That is brave to devolve that leadership. We had been having all the ups and downs so by the time we got to Rio we had a group of 31 and our trainers. We were full of driven, angry, ambitious women, which is a good recipe for a gold medal winning team!”
Richardson Walsh also spoke about her new book, Winning Together: An Olympic-Winning Approach to Building Better Teams, written alongside her partner, Helen Richardson- Walsh, who was also part of the Gold-winning 2016 GB team.
“We are both really interested in team building and how to create environments that support people being their best selves and what can we do as leaders to help create that. There are lots of male cricketers, footballers and rugby players that talk in that space, and there are not many female athletes, especially in team sport, typically talking about culture and the crossover between sport and business and people.”
Expanding on those crossovers, and how culture is created within sport and business, she said, “There are similarities, focused on the alignment of a purpose that is bigger than one single person. And you feel it in the everyday interactions, it’s woven into the fabric of who that company is or the sports teams you are in. The first person you meet when you walk in somewhere – that’s what culture is. And I think in sport and business, successful cultures are often led by people with great vision and people that communicate it clearly. And then they must have that empathy and understanding of people around them. They are that modern-day servant leader. Sports teams and companies that have this excel.”
The audience, that included senior figures from the likes of VISA, EFL, Extreme E, SailGP, UK Sport, Brentford FC, and Women in Football, heard Richardson-Walsh explain how she has always tried to be a pioneer for women in sport. She spoke passionately about the progress that has been made in recent years but was vocal in stressing that more can be done.
“It is improving and there’s so much to be proud of and celebrate. We have come so far but we still have a long way to go, so we need to keep pushing, support it and challenge. It’s one of the biggest growth opportunities for businesses to invest in. It’s not just about money and finance but it is also just the correct thing to do. Men’s sports have been well-funded for such a long time. How do we want to build sport? This is important because in some ways we are building it from the ground up. How do we make it for everybody? If we do that, we can build a better sporting world, and therefore a better world, because sport mirrors society”.
Richardson-Walsh was confident that the industry can do more to push the agenda further.
“The International Women’s Day theme this year was ‘Break the Bias’ and we are all riddled with bias. I am riddled with bias. As a white, middle-class, able-bodied, cis-gendered woman I have lots of biases that I need to navigate daily. If we all consider, when you say football, do you mean men’s football or women’s football? Can we keep challenging in that way? Can we keep challenging the biases that we all have?
I also think by making sure we have diverse people around the table, who hold the purse strings to make the decision. Then I think you start to get change throughout because it is ingrained and it’s systemic. It starts with one person. Any of us can make the challenge to those views in a small way. It all adds up in time.”
Sport Industry Dining is an invitation-only event for Sport Industry Members that meets three times a year at some of London’s most exclusive venues.
The illustrious series provides representatives from leading brands, rights holders and agencies across the sport industry with the opportunity to network, socialise and hear from some of the world’s most inspiring athletes. Find out more here.
