Driving Change: The Power of Small Steps

In November, I had the pleasure of moderating the DEI panel at the Yacht Racing Forum in Amsterdam and was fortunate in that Bernard Schopfer, the organiser of this annual networking event for the yachting industry, had given me more or less ‘carte blanche’ to bring together a panel of speakers.? It was an honour that Annamarie Phelps, Karen Webb Moss, Peter Speight and Soco Nu?ez de Cela all agreed to join in a discussion.

As ever, there is never enough time to have a proper full discussion about experiences and thoughts around developing and growing equality initiatives, but nevertheless the discussion didn’t disappoint and am happy to share a transcript of it below.

What do you think are the most important small steps that have been made in creating gender inclusivity in sport, in any discipline??

Annamarie Phelps:? Any small steps are important in helping change people's minds, and I'd say that's a key goal if we are trying to reach something like gender equality in the future. And it is important to continually be making progress, because otherwise we all sort of become tired and sort of a bit fed up when energy is used up without any impact.

For me, the most important steps are those that illustrate progress, so collecting data and reporting is key, and it’s critical that people are open about their goals and aims and measure how they're doing against them. I think without that, we're going nowhere. We just need to be careful that we don't rely too much on small steps because, as I'm sure Peter will come to at some point, knowing his system-change preferences, we are not going to change this world unless we change the system we live in.

So small steps are lovely, they take us a little bit along the line, they help us to understand the direction we're going in; it includes small steps like gender equality on the field of play at the Olympic Games, fantastic. But it hasn't changed the system.

Parity in numbers only is not equality in terms of how we live our lives and how women's sport is viewed and how women's sport is invested in. So yes, the numbers; yes those small steps; but we need to to change people's thinking to change culture.

Karen Webb Moss: So, I thought of two, small steps are essential where you have an industry and a culture that probably seems very negative for gender parity. So, I'm thinking of two examples. One is in cricket, where we have women playing cricket at a very significant level, we’ve been back on TV with cricket, where small steps, they've been making small steps in terms of getting on the field to play. So, the England and Wales Cricket Board, and backed now by the International Cricket Council, had to make not small steps but bold steps. And they have, from next year there will be gender equity in salary for people playing at the same level, for women playing at the same level.

So, the facts were that women were paid 80% less than men at the same level. The ECB pushed back and said it was over 70%, and that from here on in, when women compete in international cricket, there will be equal match fees.

On the other step, More than Equal, we were set up by F1 champion David Coulthard with entrepreneur Karel Komárek. We have a bold vision, which is to find, nurture, and develop the first female F1 champion. Now, in that industry, I've spent, like Anne-Marie, most of my career working in the Olympics, and I'm also chair of Aquatics GB and it's a tough industry. It's high tech, it's a billion-dollar sexy brand. But we haven't had a woman race in F1 for nearly 50 years.?

So, in terms of More than Equal, we needed small steps, which were about, getting credibility, doing our homework, understanding the barriers, understanding the stereotypes, being data and evidence led. So, in that example, we needed to take small steps.

Peter Speight: I think clearly the big steps and the systemic changes is the exciting part of how the small steps add up. I think what we're seeing at Think Beyond, within sport for development, is that the sports coming in now are more intentionally trying to drive social change, much of which is normally grounded in inequality. I think the big, exciting thing, which is kind of small, is brands and organisations are trying much harder to measure their social impact now, and that's coming through strongly and you're seeing that.

It's been around in the environment to state those side of things for a while, and everything's data-led, but actually being really intentional about understanding and getting feedback from the programmes that you're running, the activities that you're running, and it being really data-led and therefore grounded in the voices and needs of the individuals that you're trying to support or who are faced by that inequality. So, seeing that coming through a lot more in our work across lots of brands and organisations. I think something we're trying to do with Team Francesca as well, is have a really clear theory of change and measurement framework around everything that you're doing so it's intentional, it's designed, and you know that the actions that you're taking resolve that desire to change. So, i am seeing a small step change with the brands coming to us, but actually I think it's representative of a bigger appetite, and more effective as well.?

Soco Nu?ez de Cela: At the last Euros, the women’s football World Cup, it was big and everybody was talking about it but it's just a small change. It's just the first step in awareness. Maybe there's parity, but there's no equality there, because the salaries are not there, the conditions are not there, but it's a first step.

And I do think that the movement that we are seeing now with women in sports and more influence from media, that's been driven a lot by football, but it's still one of the first steps to do that. There's a lot of sports that don't have that visibility, there are a lot of areas where we can improve, but definitely that will help us to build on that.?

The IOC has published its figures stating gender parity amongst athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, but at the back-end, it shows that only 10% were female. What strategies can be adopted, not just in Olympic Games, but across all sports, to achieve that greater gender parity in the engine room of each sport??

Annamarie Phelps: I think the percentage of women coaches is 13%, accordinging to the IOC statistics. So in Rio we had 11%, and then in Tokyo 13%, and then again in Paris, which is really disappointing. I think the IOC made a real effort to try and push, they put a million dollars behind?project called Wish, which takes women coaches who are on the high performance pathway, and tries to upskill them and help them with confidence to drive change and to build a network. And it did result in a number of successes, we're talking about 100 coaches across the world, of whom I think a dozen or so were at the Olympic Games this year, but numbers are relatively small overall. So, I think there is a really important bit about investing for the long term, because coaches regardless of gender, I'm sure it's the same in sailing as in other sports, like athletes, take a long time to build the expertise and the confidence and the knowledge to be delivering consistently at that level.

But it is hard to address a fundamental reason that there aren't enough women coaches - which relates to the coaching environment not being welcoming for women, and so we need to work with the coaches that are there to develop a more inclusive culture. it's not just about giving the women some skills and confidence and building their network, it's about actually helping to educate the people who are already in that environment, to amplify the successes that female coaches have, so athletes are confident when they find a female coach that they're going to have success with that coach.?

Judy Murray has spoken about Andy Murray and how shocked he was, having had his mum coach him all the way through and assuming that women coaches were where it's at, when he brought in a female coach.? He was absolutely horrified at the abuse that she was given and the sort of reactions that were so public. We need to really start to push, to incentivise, and find ways to really shine a light on how successful the women coaches are - and we've got fantastic ones, Jane Figueiredo, the diving coach for the British Olympic team, for example, all of her athletes medaled, including Tom Daly, but she had a full cohort of medaling athletes, so let's celebrate them and let's help support them. Let's encourage the male coaches, who generally make up that environment, to see the positives and understand what women bring to the party, to help promote them - which is a very different way of working with athletes.

Karen Webb Moss: I think it's interesting, it has to be about awareness and pathway opportunities. At Aquatics GB we have a 60% female board and I'm the first female chair.

We have female coaches in diving and artistic swimming, but in swimming, whether that's marathon swimming or high performance, we don't have any female coaches. We also don't have any women in sports science, and yet we've got women physios and our lead doctor is a woman. So, what we've been doing is trying to get these young coaches that are coming in and people in our team management roles and giving them opportunities and awareness.

And also, what surprised me when I took this role up two years ago, is that the coaches aren't really working together. The coaches of swimming are not talking to the coaches of para swimming, who are not talking to the coaches of diving, and there's a lot of shared knowledge and shared information and expertise there.

I've just been around across the UK taking my son to look at universities and he wants to study sport business, sport science. And the guys were saying that a lot more women are applying for sport business, but hardly any for sport science. We've got the same in motorsport where F1 is going into schools and talking about more women doing sciences and more opportunities to work in F1. It's about awareness, it's about education, but you've got to have an open door and then show them a pathway, have role models and make it to the top.

Peter Speight: I think when we were talking about strategy, step one is to see these changes as opportunities and a positive thing. And I think looking at the growth of women's sport and female participation, female coaches as something to be embraced and is really positive. And I think, back to my point earlier, when you're building a strategy top down, it's got to be grounded in the voices of the people you're trying to encourage to bring in.

And I think threading that through from all the way to the top, all the way to the bottom is kind of key. And we do that at Think Beyond through inclusive stakeholder engagement and making sure that if you are in a position of privilege, of power, then you need to recognise that.?

And, you know, I find myself in that position, working in the space of Think Beyond and being aware of that and how you're there for building these plans and building these strategies and making sure that the decision making is shaped in an inclusive way and by a diversity of voices.

I think, back to the opportunity point, we've seen some great stats by Upwind by MerConcept about the growth of women's sport and viewership, for example. But also, the classic that diverse teams make better decisions, which is pretty much mainstream now, people recognise that. But taking that a step further and thinking about belonging and psychological safety so that decisions can be shaped to create better outcomes.?

And thinking about this as something that brings everyone up together is a really good framing. And I think that's what we really want to try and uncover through the work with Team Francesca is to look at that next layer of inclusion around belonging in a high performing sports setting. But bringing that in to see that, it’s the people that aren't buying into it that need to see this as positive as well and something that everyone wins by.?

How important are organisations like More Than Equal, Magenta Project, in supporting these pathways and these programmes that we've been talking about??

Soco Nu?ez de Cela: I think they are crucial. I think that organisations like Magenta Project that has been going for ten years now, and More Than Equal are creating pathways. What we are seeing are smaller projects coming up but then how we create an umbrella that we are pushing in the same direction, making sure that we are aligning and pushing together for the same efforts. It's not having a fragmented environment where there are different initiatives, maybe towards the same target, but in different ways. But we are talking together, the Magenta Project, More Than Equal, and we are actually working together on a project around equipment and equality.

We are providing that framework where we are all working together, discussing, understanding what the challenges are, creating pathways. I think that your point on the coaches and so on, is like it's not like talking about the exception - there is an MBA woman who is now a coach. It's about celebrating that, but also showing what is the path, creating the role models, how to open doors, how to make sure that younger women know what to do, how to get there, how they are going to be trained. And it's not only in sport, but also everything that goes around the sport. We always talk about engineers, project managers, and professional sailing. These organisations can provide the framework, kind of the window, and get everything together so it's more powerful. At least from the Magenta Project, I think that's key.?

Karen Webb Moss: Well, I think you've seen a woman win the Grand National, you've had 50% parity in athletes competing in Olympic Games. You have more women than men in extreme sports now. Motorsport and F1 is about the last glass ceiling in sport and it's full of stereotypes, which have probably prevented women following the pathway to get there.

There are plenty of barriers, culture, design of equipment, which I think we're going to come on to, opportunity, funding is a barrier for girls and women, for motorsport. But the stereotypes are immense, and the culture is extraordinary inside motorsport.

The stereotypes are that we're not strong enough to drive fast cars, we're not built for it, we don't have the cognitive ability. And yet we've sent 70 women to space, and we have over, I think it's about 1,400 female fighter pilots who are combat trained in the US and UK alone. And if you can fly a fighter jet over Afghanistan, I think we might be able to drive a fast car.

Annamarie Phelps: The other crucial thing about these sort of organisations is they are independent of the International Federation or the National Federation. So, they can say things as they are, they can say where the problem is, they can point these things out and they can have that independent voice, and I think that's really important. It's very difficult to be within your framework and then to be critical of it.?

Soco Nu?ez de Cela: I think that's key also because it's not only about giving that framework but also voicing the challenges that in some cases individuals, they are not going to feel powerful enough or they are going to be afraid because if 'I say something is this going to harm me or it's going to damage my career'. So having that open door to listen and to understand, okay, you need support here and we are going to take your voice, and we are going to amplify it, it's also quite important.

Karen Webb Moss: We have had more collaboration and support from sailing and the world of equestrian than we have in motorsport. So, we are independent, we are bold, we are seen as disruptive. We are not a women's campaigning group. We are using data, we are working with experts in motorsport to get girls when they are carting and young, which is only about 10-12% of those driving around the world, where only 4% of actual data exists about girls. There is not even gender marking to show whether someone on a track is female or a male.

So, there are lots of basics and we have now done a partnership with the FIA, which will see change, but the industry in motorsport has been quite closed doors, quite critical. You have got F1 Academy and on paper, that's great, it raises the profile for women, but it's women versus women in lower spec cars. We believe girls can compete against boys; women can compete against men.?

In the sport of sailing, we are at a safeguarding watershed. Whilst we can choose to ignore it, there have been very well publicised recent incidents that mean that we absolutely can't. Working on the basis that safer sport will support greater diversity, are there any good standout examples of safeguarding or good safeguarding practices? And how much do you think safeguarding is about education and supporting a culture shift??

Peter Speight:? I'm going to shamelessly talk about myself a little bit and my athlete experience here. And actually, talk about the opportunities around psychological safety that I've experienced. Fundamentally, psychological safety is critical to elite performance, I did 3-star halfpipe skiing, which is really dangerous, a bit mad to be honest. I'm not sure why I did it for 10 years and injured myself all the time, but I got to the Olympics and got an incredible run.

I grew up in Sheffield, in the north of England, where there is a dry ski slope, where skiing is a very inaccessible sport, like sailing and most other sports. From a cost point of view, from a structural barrier point of view, this dry slope removes a lot of those barriers, and you end up with a diverse group of people all skiing together. But the adding part of this was that the culture was really strong and there was a strong sense of belonging. And I grew up competing and training alongside lots of females. We went on to compete at the Olympics and we trained alongside each other all the way through, and it was great. And I think when you're really at that elite pointy level, you must feel safe and secure and trust amongst your support team, within the culture that you're in order to get the best out of yourself as an athlete.

Francesca, our client on this project, has not always felt that in her journey as a sailor. And undoubtedly, it's a harmful experience to her performance at times. So, you know, ultimately, fostering psychological safety in different contexts, through culture, from grassroots, all the way through to the elite level, is critical for performance. My experience at Sheffield was by accident, because it just so happened that we had this incredible culture, but the more that you can intentionally design those environments and really think about that culture of belonging, not just the structural side of things, the more you're going to get out of those participants, the more you're going to get out of athletes and the more you're going to bring in and unleash the potential of your sport, because you're blocking out potential if you make people not feel safe.

I was very lucky to have gotten that experience, but you can really intentionally design it, all the work you're doing, and More Than Equal, I've got some NFL examples I think are useful to talk about. And hopefully we can uncover some nuggets around belonging through the Team Francesca project and with 11th Hour Racing that can be brought to a sailing context and actually inform and educate people to think about their behaviour and how that can boost performance and be seen as something that's really positive.?

Annamarie Phelps:? I think it is about culture. Safeguarding is not rocket science. It's about treating people the way you would expect them to treat your children. But people just don't get that. They can forget that athletes might be either children or vulnerable adults.

As an athlete, you're seen as the athlete and I have been really impressed with Sarah Powell, Chief Executive of British Gymnastics. You'll know gymnastics has had some safeguarding crises globally, we’ve read some awful stories about the way gymnasts have been treated. But we've always suspected this, we’ve always heard stories of Russia and China and how they train their athletes, putting aside the whole Larry Nassar sexual abuse piece. Sarah talks about changing the narrative in gymnastics so that they think about the child first. So, it's not about how your elite athlete is going to win. When you look at your athlete as a coach, you're thinking that, first of all, they're a child and that they are being introduced to having fun and becoming active and fit and then they become a gymnast as they do a little bit more and they start to do training and last of all, you think about them as an elite athlete. That's when they go into competition.

But it's that sort of development piece of always thinking that this elite athlete has come from that child that started off somewhere. And really putting their well-being at the heart of any decisions. And making sure that they are developed in a way that can help them to make the right decisions for themselves, even when they're at a very young age.

Karen Webb Moss: The whole area and issue of safeguarding is absolutely front of mind for national governing bodies and for international federations and, unless the culture changes in a lot of our sports, it's going to cripple us. We're spending more money on safeguarding experts and officers and necessary reviews, we’re spending more money on legal cases. Because there's greater transparency and greater voice for athletes, for young people, for parents, which is essential, there’s greater exposure of what's not going right.

And in swimming, we also have issues. We are with Aquatics GB, we're at the elite performance end of it. But our partner, Swim England, has just undergone a massive review called the Listening Report because more and more cases of, sometimes it's abuse in the extreme example, but sometimes it's called bullying,? coaches who bully. And then on the other hand, we've got to deal with coaches who don't want to stay in the sport or don't want to come into the sport because for them it's firm coaching. And there's a massive ethical education needed throughout our sport. Swim England spent 6-8 months going up and down the country, listening to athletes, listening to children, listening to families, coaches, parents for the Listening Report. And we are very supportive of everything they're doing to try and change our sport. Otherwise, our reputation is at risk, the commercial partnership, although it's pretty minimal for aquatics in the UK, like a lot of NGBs. But all of that is at risk and we have got to look after our young people.?

Soco Nu?ez de Cela: To add to that, there’s all the organisations, federations, there's a responsibility of safeguarding but I do think also we are all at the elite of the sport. And as individuals, we also have a responsibility. I think that all of us here we have that responsibility to educate our environment but also take action and raise a hand if we see something, to protect each other. I think that it's not only about women, but also everybody involved having open eyes and flagging if we are seeing something. Because sometimes if someone is feeling that they are not being treated fairly or in a situation that they are not comfortable with, maybe they will be afraid of talking. But it's just partly we have that responsibility of saying, hey, something is happening here. And take action.

Sailing, equestrianism and motorsport are working together to carry out research on equipment design and how it impacts performance and participation, and potentially leading to people, women in particular, leaving the sport. Karen, could you talk a bit more about this?

Karen Webb Moss: This is why the collaboration is really important. I think we have many similarities in terms of environment facilities for girls or women. So, when More Than Equal started, we had to prove credibility and find out the various stereotypes, as I said. And one of the barriers is about the environment and the other is about, obviously, the design of the cart or the design of the car.?

Such barriers are, for Jamie Chadwick, who is probably a name you do know. She said that often in most karting races around the world, and even F4, Rally, there are no changing facilities, no toilets for women. She was changing in the back of the car. That's common.

No gender marking, no availability of data for girls and women racing. That's common.

You have an environment in karting where, I have teenagers now, but I wonder if any of you who have a girl or a boy and a girl said, Mum, I'd like to go karting, or Dad, I'd like to go karting for my birthday party instead of sort of Build a Bear or something, whether you would? But what happens, even if girls do go karting, is that the boys will not be beaten by a girl. So, they'd sooner smash up their car than, and this is fact, and we've got data on this, and push the girl off the race. But in terms of design, the average starter car in F4 is designed for people who are 5'4 and over. And we've got about 50-60% of the population of women, but most of us are 5'4 and under.

So even the very tall male racing drivers and smaller female drivers, the chassis of a Formula 4 car, let alone F1, is against them. Basically, there is no flexibility in the pedals, so to reach them, the design is against them. And amendments can be made, like changing the access of the steering wheel.

But what happens in most of these cases, and when you talk to rally drivers that have reached the top, some women, one example of a woman who won a European championship, is that she was racing in a rally car, with three cushions wrapped around her. And we spoke to a female fighter pilot, and the fighter pilots get in a cockpit that is totally designed for men. They don't have specific training, they can't adapt it, and some of them were using these bands and putting cushions underneath and behind them.

So, I think the design of the car goes against them. I'm pleased to say the FIA is listening to us, they've read our data, and changes are afoot. The power steering, which is not available in F4, 3 and 2, and some of F2, is also going to be something that needs to change. So, gender bias is absolutely an issue for women, and even if there are slight amendments, it often negatively impacts their performance.?

Soco Nu?ez de Cela: Something that I found today quite interesting is that we had the speakers talking about AI and safety, and how the new cameras can help, like with IMOCA sailors and so on.

But why are we thinking about AI and how we can work with it, when the most basic thing, like a life jacket, does not fit most women – it’s not fit for purpose. So, we are trying to advance, and we are looking forward to what technology can bring for the sport of sailing. But we are not looking at the basic equipment, like foul weather gear, life jackets, lifelines, everything; it’s not thought about for women. But even though we want to have more women in sport, we are not thinking about it, and we are just looking at, okay, what is next??

Karen Webb Moss: And out of our work together, what has really surprised me is more people we talked to the more, like the armed forces, the NHS and RAF, have come to us.?

The police motorcycle, there are these outriders that go with VIPs and the royals. There are only two women in the UK, and there are constant complaints, and they automatically go and see a physio or an osteopath, because the motorbikes and the equipment they have to wear so they all look exactly the same, are all designed for men.?

In healthcare, there are 67% of women in the healthcare system globally, and as we all saw through COVID, the majority, 50-60%, said that the PPE equipment was vastly uncomfortable and damaging to their face, because most of this equipment is designed for men, the same for the fire service. So, when we crack this thing, and when we start to see changes, it has a massive impact for safety across so many multiple industries.

And I think that's been one of the most interesting take-outs actually. It's not just sport, it is across everything.

Questions from the audience:?

Have you looked at who is telling the boys being beaten by a girl is bad??

Karen Webb Moss: Yeah, the dad. There you go.

Annamarie Phelps: Women in sport have done some research into this, and actually it's a family, it's a cultural thing. By the age of five, when kids get to school in the UK, girls already believe that boys are better at sports, and girls are worse at sports. They believe that they're not set out for it. And until they're about 14, they are just as good. Until they get through puberty, girls and boys can compete against each other in a lot of sports.

Do you feel that there is also a demand from fans, broadcast and commercial partners to support this growth, and is there a business case for female sport? I think you've established that the desire for participation is there.?

Peter Speight: Yeah, it's 100% a business case for women's sport. I think I'll go for a classic example that everyone is probably aware of, is women's football and the growth there. One of our clients at the moment, the Great London Authority, they've just done a study that women's football matches are having such great participation that there's a 45% uptick in economic activity in the immediate area to stadiums, so you're seeing a higher spend in restaurants. That's just a very classic, cynical economic angle of the benefit there, but it's true. It's the growth of sport, it’s the direction that things are going.

You look at sailing, the new formats of sailing that are coming into the Olympics, so looking at diversifying sports and how people are accessing them, who is accessing them. It's the direction of travel, and we're seeing that on our clients as well, outside of sailing and football. So, Liverpool Football Club, for example, has got a fantastic strategy called the Redway. They've really embraced purpose across their partnerships, and that involves all sorts of social impact issues, one of which might be gender, but also their environmental sustainability, and you've got a huge benefit there. So I see in our work there's only one direction of travel, and I think it should just be seen as an opportunity and not a negative. It's a win-win.

Karen Webb Moss: To add, More Than Equal isn't just about gender equity and motorsport and a nice to do and a must do. You've all probably seen Drive to Survive, it’s a Netflix's success, it's not just a huge growth of a younger audience, 18 to 25 watching that. It's predominantly women, and the commercial interest and our own research inside TRAC showed that people watching, motorsport fans, will watch more, buy more tickets, support the brands that support getting women to compete against men in F1.?

How do we incentivise and support female coaches more? Have you got any good examples??

Annamarie Phelps: Quick example from New South Wales from tennis, where they took a very small group. The whole of New South Wales is an enormous, enormous territory in Australia, there were only 20 female coaches in tennis about 5, 7, 8 years ago or so. They took those 20, they got them all down to a training programme with Judy Murray. She did four really basic courses with them, taught them how to get young kids aged 4 to 5 starting to play tennis, taught them how to do an adult learn to play tennis course, how to coach them, so they did two coaching basic courses, two really basic courses on how to run events. They set them off for a year and said, go and do this, gather as many people as you can, come back next year, we'll take you up to the next level in that, but you must come back and bring another person with you, another woman with you.

So, they had 20 in the first year, 40 in the second year, and 80 in the third year. They now have 380 trained female coaches around New South Wales over an 8-year period, all of whom are able to get kids playing tennis, get adults playing tennis, do basic competitions and basic training schemes and things like that. There's one way of just saying, buddy up, build your network, come with another woman, and just multiply it fast, but that takes investment.

More Than Equal has spoken very effectively about how sports where women only compete against men, e.g. football, have at least been able to develop their own systems and leagues. In motorsport and sailing, women compete against men, in theory, on equal terms. How does that change your approach??

Karen Webb Moss: The theory is that working with the sports sciences, working with Oliver Smedley and Michael Hintze, who are the best, I mean Hintze trains 8 out of 10 of the guys you see at the top of F1 podium. If we can prove that there is no cognitive reason why a woman can't drive an F1 car, and there's no physical reason, and if we can prove that women are disadvantaged by the design of the car, it's not going to happen overnight. We think it's going to take us 8 to 10 years to get a woman up to F1. We need specific, tailor-made, holistic female training, and that's what we're doing with the first-ever female driver development program. So, we can't train girls to drive as boys are, in exactly the same way.?

I think the theory is there, but for example, in a sport like aquatics, in diving, it's only been in the last 5-8 years that we realised that you must coach girls very differently to boys. So, we're doing work into understanding the hormonal cycles of young girls in performance, and understanding the development of teenagers. We have a cohort of 8 girls at the moment from all over the world, and another 25 that are on the watch list.

These girls want to win, but the way we train them has to be different. And because there is no pathway, there is no training manual for girls in motorsport, we're developing it.?

Soco Nu?ez de Cela: I think that word pathway is the way to go. It's creating those pathways. It's creating ways of telling younger women that they can make it. So, for example, if we're talking about the Vendee Globe. There are women, men, same terms, same conditions. First one crossing the finish line will be the winner. But there are very few women there. And even though we say there are more women than last Vendee Globe, the percentage is still lower than the previous one. Why? Why is this happening? And I think that it's important that we show that women can make it, but maybe in a different way. So, it's like they might not be stronger, but they might be smarter. They might find a way of doing things their way, but I do think that they have to start with basics. And again, for me, the equipment and some of the tools and resources that they have has to be equal.?

As participation and sailing knowledge is decreasing, isn't it just a matter of time, a matter of survival of our sport??

Peter Speight: Well, I think no. I don't have the numbers, but if that is the case, then I think it's referring back to some of the things I said earlier, which is that this is a moment of opportunity to look a little bit differently and think innovatively, which a lot of sports are doing, and therefore they're reaping the rewards of it. And if it's a case of broadening participation by embracing change, by thinking differently, if it's gender, yes, but if there's other ways as well, if it's socioeconomic, we looked at some great examples of initiatives in the last couple of presentations, and sports are having to do that, and sailing has got loads to offer. There's the technology. There are men and women being able to compete in one team. There is the connection to nature, it's an outdoor action sport, action sports are taking off, and there's fantastic opportunity there.

I think there's loads going on in sailing, and it's moving in the right direction. I think that opportunity is my takeaway and being bold enough to embrace that change and lean into it, which aligns sailing on it, and you're seeing the results of it. So, yeah, I think it can be a moment of exciting opportunity.

The session concluded with a final question to each panelist:

What one call to action would you give participants at this conference in terms of addressing greater gender equity. Somebody said earlier today that we shouldn't need to have panels like this because there shouldn't be a need to call it out for what it is. What would be your one call to action?

Annamarie Phelps: I guess mine would be, we can't let this go without speaking to the men in the room and giving you a job. So, I heard yesterday an amazing, amazing speaker called Nazir Asif in London. He's a former Chief Crown Prosecutor in the UK, largely looking at misogyny-type cases.

His takeaway, and takeaway I took from him, was that we need male allies, yes, but actually what we need more are active advocates for change. We need people to stand up and to really understand what's going on. So, my call to action to all of you, particularly to the men, but to all of you, is please speak out about things. Please understand what's going on in your space, know the data. There was a horrific survey done recently of corporates, I think mostly in the US, but the very largest organisation. And in? most of the medium to large companies, 80% of the men thought that they were doing well if they had 10% women in their senior leadership team. Now 10% of women in their senior leadership is not doing well, but it's okay because they've ticked a box. Understanding your data and understanding the impact that the interventions you're making have on that data, I think is a really important takeaway for me.

Karen Webb Moss: Agree with that. A couple of things. Unfortunately, we still need these conversations.

We do still need panels like this. And for the 19 men who left while I was standing, when this session was introduced clearly, we still need to get to them. For those blokes who've stayed, really well done to you. Call it out. White males are often in leadership positions. You have an enormous privilege. So, look around the room as to who's in the room for diversity and inclusion. And frankly, it makes business sense, 50% of the population is female. It makes business and commercial sense. Call it out and open up the door and make pathways and give opportunities because the organisation, the sport, the business, on the field of play, off the field of play, will all benefit.?

Peter Speight: ?I was going to say, it's the opportunity. Now, you've covered a lot of details but what I'm going to say is to see this change, diversity, equity and inclusion as an opportunity.

And I'm just going to put the commercial lens in there because that is a language which the world speaks, and a lot of people understand it hits home. And that is what the opportunity in front of you is. So, if you are in a leadership position, a decision-making position, embrace that change and lean into it and look at what the commercial and the growth opportunity can be as a result.

Soco Nu?ez de Cela:? For me, if you stop looking at this as a checklist exercise, it's not like having, OK, tick the box, I have one person at the helm, and it's a woman. It's not about we have to have 20%, 10%. This sport has to be a reflection of our world and it's not. I do agree that sometimes we need to push some quotas because that's the only way for things to happen. But we need to look beyond that, and we need to look wider in the whole sport and not just, OK, one person that is going to be an Instagram post, we have a new driver, a new helm, whatever. But then what about the rest of this sport? What about the rest of the industry??