Katie Simmonds, SIGA Global COO, and Managing Director of the #SIGAWomen Global Female Mentorship Programme announced this week that applications for the 2021/22 Programme open on Wednesday 8th December.
Katie Simmonds was speaking to more than 300 International Tennis Federation (ITF) officials, on the topic ‘How can Mentoring and Support Lead to Success’, a panel included in Advantage All, ITF’s Gender Equality Programme. She was joined by Sean Cary, Managing Director Competition-Operations, USTA, and Susanne Neuhauser, Track Racing Referee, International Motorcycling Federation (FIM).
The three panelists agreed that Mentorship Programmes are key to help developing new skills, and fighting gender, racial or any other kind of discrimination.
SIGA’s example was showcased as a successful programme. The 2020/21 #SIGAWomen Global Mentorship Programme was open to women aged 24 or over, and aimed at promoting future leaders in Sport, fostering greater diversity. Katie Simmonds explained how dozens of female leaders in the Sport Industry helped pave the way for future female leaders, and how that was made possible during the Covid-19 pandemics lockdowns.
Katie Simmonds shared the guiding lines of the programme:
“We want to create greater pathways for more female leaders on the board room of sports organisations. Diversity means better business decisions. We want to ensure women have the same chances to achieve leadership roles as men. The programme we created is for senior women in the industry to lend a helping hand for those at the start of their career to create a safe space for women to ask questions to women with experience. We created the programme in 2018 with 16 global mentors, and now we have more than 50 from all over the world, and all sports. It’s a 6-month programme, and it’s all about ‘if you can see it, you can be it’. We are creating a powerful online community, we cover areas like facing sexism in the work place, leadership pathways, goal setting and much more etc. This programme is designed to give young women confidence to go for it, and get leadership roles”.
Applications for the 2021/ 2022 #SIGAWomen Global Mentorship Programme open Wednesday 8 December 2021.
Stay Tuned.
Prior to the panel with SIGA’s COO, Eva Asderaki-Moore interviewed David Haggerty, President, ITF. They spoke about mentorship, and David admitted ITF still “has work to do in order to get more women on leadership positions”, and gave excellent advice to all mentees: “Reach your mentor whenever you need help, not only when they may think you need help. If you feel in need, reach out to them. You may have a situation in which you need help, but they won’t know. Sometimes you will hear what you have to hear, not what you want to hear. Be open and listen. I wouldn’t be where I am without some people that took me under their wing”.
WHAT IS SIGA?
SIGA’s Global Reform Agenda was also addressed.
Being asked by Jaume Campistol what is SIGA, Katie Simmonds gave a concise explanation: “We’re change-makers. We’re here to ensure Sport Integrity remains at the top. We have the SIGA Universal Standards on Sport Integrity and are encouraging sports organisations to adopt them, and go through the SIGA Independent Rating and Verification System (SIRVS). Would you go to an hotel without knowing how many stars it has? Would you enter a plane without knowing how safe it was? Sport is probably the last industry which hadn’t had any independent oversight. SIGA is an organisation whose time has come!”.
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ABOUT SIGA
SIGA is the world´s largest coalition in the field of sport´s governance and integrity. Supported by more than 100 international multi-industry supporters, SIGA is an independent and neutral organisation whose mission is to bring about meaningful reforms and enhance the integrity of all sports through a set of universal standards operated by an independent and neutral body. SIGA is the only organisation to bring together sport, governments, academia, international organisations, sponsors, business, rights holders, NGOs and professional services companies, from every region in the world, around a common cause of fostering greater integrity throughout sport.
Click on the hyperlinks for the list of SIGA Members and Committed Supporters and SIGA Partners.
For more information on SIGA, including its vision, mission and reform agenda, please refer to the website: www.siga-sport.com.
To contact SIGA, please email: comms@siga-sport.com.