Ground-breaking Paris Olympic silver medal-winning Australian women’s water polo coach Bec Rippon will be the guest speaker at a workshop tomorrow (Tuesday 15 October) for the NSWRL’s innovative annual Women In Sport Leadership program, which has attracted 21 participants from 10 different sports.
Rippon, the first woman appointed to coach the Stingers and an Olympic bronze medallist as a player, will share her knowledge and experiences of working in various levels of elite sport during the workshop at the NSWRL Centre of Excellence, Sydney Olympic Park.
Designed by the NSWRL in partnership with the University of New England (UNE), the professional development program aims to help women overcome barriers in achieving leadership positions in elite sporting organisations by supporting their career development in the key areas of leadership self-awareness and communication.
First run as a pilot program in 2021, initially targeting female coaches, the 20-week course, fully-funded by the NSWRL, has been expanded to women in a variety of roles in sporting organisations.
Participants in the 2024 program include executives, managers, executives, officials, co-ordinators, and coaches from 10 state sporting organisations representing Rugby League, athletics, surf life saving, tennis, touch football, basketball, gymnastic, volleyball, lawn bowls, and football.
The program involves face-to-face workshops supported by individual coaching sessions, and group webinars, to assist participants to complete assessment in two modules. That gives them nationally-recognised credits towards a Diploma or Certificate IV in Leadership and Management.
The program has produced 43 graduates since 2021, including pilot program participant, dual international and former NSW captain, Ruan Sims OAM, who is now a leading Rugby League commentator and Westpac NSW women’s Origin assistant coach.
Sims was the guest speaker for the opening workshop of the program, which runs from September to December, followed by a graduation ceremony early next year.
NSWRL Head of Communication and Community Engagement Dr Tracie Edmondson said the organisation is extremely proud of the program, which has received overwhelmingly positive feedback about its immediate impact.
“The increased confidence expressed and displayed by participants in key leadership areas from when they started the programs to when they graduated has been incredible … and that feedback has come from their CEOs and the facilitator, not just the participants,” Edmondson said.
“While NSWRL was fortunate to receive government funding in the second year of the program (2022), we have been prepared to fully fund it every other year and to offer it to other sports at no cost because we believe in the enormous value participants get from working and learning together as well as the networking benefits.”
