Not Your #GirlBoss
Opinion: Sue Bird’s appointment is what good hiring looks like. After twenty years in sport, one writer asks why leadership pipelines for women are still so often treated like fairy tales.
By Emma W
Ninety-four percent of women in the C-suite played sport.
That’s according to a 2015 survey by EY and espnW, which also found that over half had competed at collegiate level. It’s a stat that gets thrown around often, but it’s frequently misunderstood. It doesn’t mean women dominate leadership. What it actually means is that of the small percentage of women who do make it to the top, almost all of them have a background in sport. That should tell us something. Sport quietly remains one of the most effective leadership training grounds we have. So why aren’t we doing more to develop that pipeline properly?
I want to be careful here. This isn’t a rant about how change isn’t fast enough or how nothing’s good enough. I know progress takes time. I understand structures, and I know how many people are working hard to shift things. Maybe it’s my own internal bias from two decades of being inside it, but I’ve worked in sport long enough to see the patterns repeat. Across the men’s and women’s games, in newsrooms, boardrooms and press rooms, from local teams to international events, I’ve spent most of my time behind the scenes pushing to get women’s sport the attention, airtime and respect it deserves. Sometimes that’s quiet work: shaping language, asking better questions, shifting tone. Sometimes it’s been louder: fighting for coverage, space and legitimacy in budgets that still default to men.
I’m British, but I’ve worked across the UK and the US and now live stateside. There are cultural differences, definitely. The US college system offers a clearer route into sport, even beyond playing. Back in the UK, the growth is more piecemeal, more grassroots-led. But the constant in both places is how hard women still have to fight to be taken seriously as anything other than add-ons.
So when I saw the news about Sue Bird being appointed Managing Director of the USA Basketball Women’s National Team, it felt refreshingly obvious. Finally, someone just made the right call. She’s played at the highest level. She’s won five Olympic golds. She’s led teams, built a career in media, supported other athletes and launched businesses. This isn’t a symbolic role. It’s a position of real influence, and she is, by every measure, qualified to do it.
This new role is a major structural shift for USA Basketball. For years, team selection and staffing were handled by committee. Now, following the model already used by the men’s national team, the women’s programme will be steered by a dedicated managing director, just like Grant Hill currently does on the men’s side. Bird, whose term will run through the next Olympic cycle, will be responsible for selecting the coaching staff and assembling the national team roster for competitions including next year’s FIBA World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Bird herself has said the new kind of pressure excites her. “I’m hoping to bring all that I learned as a player, all my experience, all my understanding,” she told reporters. “The whole goal is to win a gold medal and it feels at times that’s the only option. I know what it’s like to be a player, to build teams and have teams come together and see what clicks.”
USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley called the appointment a “major shift” and said it had been in the works since 2021, when Bird began serving on the programme’s board. “Her pedigree and standing in the sport is so strong. Not just in women’s basketball, but all of sport. She’s a tremendous leader,” he said. The men’s programme has had a managing director role for nearly two decades. The fact it’s taken this long to mirror that structure on the women’s side only reinforces how overdue this move is.
And yet, Bird’s appointment wasn’t met with fanfare or fuss. It made headlines, but not out of shock. It made sense. No vague title, no half-hearted job description. Just a serious role, handed to a serious candidate. That should be the standard. But it still isn’t.
DEVELOPMENT
According to SIGA’s 2023 report, just 26.9 percent of leadership roles in international sport federations are held by women. Strip out HR and comms, the departments where women are often clustered, and that figure falls further. The International Olympic Committee reports that women hold over 30 percent of executive board positions, and 41 percent of IOC membership overall. That’s after years of pledges, policies and public commitments to improvement. So yes, change is happening. But it is still happening on terms that keep women exceptional, rather than expected.
What’s frustrating is that the pipeline is already full. The talent is there. The 94 percent stat should be driving recruitment strategies, development frameworks and succession plans. Women who’ve come through sport, especially women’s sport, have had to do it all: juggle careers, coaching, education, brand-building, logistics. They’ve done more with less. They’ve developed a kind of experience that most hiring panels claim to value. But too often, when the time comes, they are overlooked or put into roles that lack genuine authority.
I’ve seen it myself. I’ve worked with former players brought in to lend credibility to an organisation’s diversity targets, but not trusted to lead. I’ve seen token hires who were expected to represent something without being given the support or time to succeed. And I’ve also seen the opposite. One former international footballer I worked with joined a content team and within weeks had quietly redefined it. No fuss, no slogans. Just smart thinking, clear direction, and better outcomes. She knew what she was doing. She just needed the job, and the space to get on with it.
It’s worth saying this as well. This isn’t about sidelining men. Some of the most consistent and thoughtful champions of women’s sport I’ve worked with have been male colleagues. People who’ve made space, shared credit, and pushed just as hard to make things better. They didn’t do it for praise. They did it because they believed it mattered. Progress doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens when people across the structure, all of it, decide to shift things together.
There are other examples of women stepping into real leadership roles and shaping the future of sport. Kim Ng became the first female and first Asian-American general manager in Major League Baseball when she took the reins at the Miami Marlins in 2020. After leading the team to a postseason berth in 2023, she stepped down and in 2025 was appointed Commissioner of Athletes Unlimited Softball, where she now oversees one of the most innovative women’s sports leagues in the US. Sarai Bareman, FIFA’s Chief Women’s Football Officer since 2016, has been central to integrating women’s football across all 211 member associations, from World Cup planning to long-term investment strategy. Katrina Adams, the former professional tennis player, served two terms as President and CEO of the USTA, becoming the first Black person and youngest person to hold the role. She now chairs the US Open committee and continues to influence governance and inclusion in American tennis. Kirsty Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in swimming and former Minister of Sport in Zimbabwe, currently serves on the IOC Executive Board and is widely regarded as a future president of the organisation.
These are not ceremonial roles. These are women making structural decisions at the highest level. And yet, the language around them still points to novelty. We call them pioneers. We call them firsts. But we rarely just call them leaders.
The trail has already been cleared. What we need now is structure. Funding. Leadership development. Hiring practices that don’t default to familiarity. Succession planning that doesn’t rely on personal networks. Teams where women’s leadership isn’t exceptional. It’s built in.
We spend a lot of time talking about the next icon, the next Sue, the next Serena, the next Megan. But the better question is: who’s ready, and who’s being prepared? The talent is there. The issue is what we do with it.
Sport, at its best, teaches everything you need to lead: resilience, pressure, strategy, communication, teamwork. Women are coming out of that system already equipped. They don’t need a different ladder. They just need the barriers cleared from the one that already exists.
Sue Bird didn’t get this job because it was time. She got it because she’s the right person. And the point is, she’s not alone. She’s just the one who got picked. The real shift will come when we stop picking one and start backing many.
What do you think?
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m stating the obvious, having a moan, or missing something bigger? Maybe you’ve seen it play out differently. Either way, I’d love to hear how it looks from where you are. Tell Glorious, over on social: @GloriousSport
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