"Celebrating Title IX: 96% of C-level Women Business Executives were Athletes"
Contributed by Buffy Filippell,
TeamWork Online Founder and SAEM Guest Blogger
Two weeks ago, June 23, was the 41st anniversary of Title IX, a law which states that institutions receiving federal funding must provide equal monies to men's and women's education and activities. That includes sports. Title IX's benefits are being felt in women's sports and women in business.
In celebration to that anniversary, Ernst & Young, an accounting firm, conducted a global online survey "to investigate the important role of sports in the development of the female executive in connection with its Women Athletes Global Leadership Network."
As reported by Forbes and further reported by the Nashville Business Journal and the Baltimore Business Journal, "The study found that 90% of the women surveyed had played sports either at primary and secondary school, or during university or other tertiary education, with this proportion rising to 96% among C-suite women. Moreover, in comparing C-level female respondents to other female managers, far more had participated in sports at a higher level. Ultimately, 55% of the C-suite women had played sports at a university level, compared with 39% of other female managers.
"The respondents included 821 senior managers and executives (40% female, 60% male) who work at companies with annual revenues in excess of US$250 million. Together they represented 15 different countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom, and United States) and a wide range of industries including but not limited to agriculture, automotive, entertainment, media and publishing, government/public sector, financial services, and technology."
Title IX's affect was cited several times in the Wall Street Journal, lately in a story headlined, "Women Athletes flock to the United States" discussing how the United States found the winning formula for women's tennis. Although no American male or female made it to the finals of Wimbledon, more American women advanced further than men. Additionally, many non-American women players train in America where our culture and government programs such as Title IX provided them scholarships, facilities, coaching, encouragement and support because they participate in competitive sports; they are beneficiaries of Title IX.
And speaking of Title IX and the Wimbledon fortnight, who has won the most Wimbledon tennis championship titles? Billie Jean King ( and Martina Navratilova, too) with 20, including singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Who's Billie Jean King? She was among the group of women who helped push through Title IX in 1972. She founded the Women's Sports Foundation, the Women's Tennis Association and was named by Life Magazine as one of the top 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Thank Billie Jean King. She inspired me to pursue varsity tennis in college, become the first female sports agent for IMG and the founder of TeamWork Online. So all of you athletes, ( equal opportunity men and women!) either in school or out, can become C-level sports executives!
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