Everything in Sport, London 2023 Agenda

BREAKFAST

Welcome & Housekeeping (5 mins)

Welcome & Introduction (5 mins)

Opening Remarks (5 mins)

A pre-recorded Video Message from Rt Hon Stuart Andrew
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Equalities), UK Government

Panel Discussion: 30% of our Society (35 mins)

Fire Side Chat: State of the Nation (20 mins)

• Workforce Governance
• Workforce Skills
• Workforce Coaching

Panel Discussion: Safeguarding Sport within Federations & NGBS (40 mins)

Safeguarding Sport within Federations and National Governing Bodies of sport – Are we doing enough? How can we improve the safeguarding framework?

• NGB’s and self-regulation – The need for greater transparency. How do we integrate all digital systems from the NGB’s through to Federations
• How do we make sure coaches are trained to meet people’s needs
• Is it time for an independent body being established, so it can regulate every aspect of safeguarding in sport?

Keynote: Future Sustainability of Women’s Sport (20 mins)

Kelly Simmons, FA Director of the Women’s Professional Game, The FA

Kelly oversees the National Game including children’s, grassroots and semi-professional football. She is currently leading the development and implementation of The FA National Game Strategy, which will invest £200m into grassroots football over a four-year period. A member of the UEFA Grassroots Panel and the FIFA Women’s Committee, Kelly’s hard work and determination was recognised in 2002 when she received an MBE for her services to football.

A figurehead for women’s football, she is responsible for the implementation of The FA’s ‘Game Changer’ which outlines plans for women’s football, including the development of the new semi-professional FA Women’s Super League. In 2019, she secured The FA a new three year deal with Barclays, which is without a doubt a landmark moment for the women’s game.

Keynote: Open Innovation (15 mins)

Lorin Hamlin, Under Armour, 
Lorin Hamlin joined Under Armour in 2011 to manage the grand opening of the state-of-the-art Innovation Lab. While acting as legal liaison for the Innovation team, Lorin’s role quickly grew to include business development and strategic alliances.

As part of the Innovation Partnerships team, Lorin now oversees Idea House, a platform which embraces the entrepreneurial spirit on which Under Armour was founded; and Future Show, historically a showcase of the best ideas and concepts submitted through Idea House featuring an in-house trade show exhibition, in which Under Armor employees voted on their favourite products and innovations and the winner pitched to a team of top UA executives for a chance to develop their concept or product to commercialisation through Under Armour.

Considering the stellar growth of Under Armour, the platform is currently being reimagined and streamlined to ensure Under Armour is the first to see the very latest concepts and products, directly aligning with the specific needs of all athletes. Lorin also has a special interest in start-up accelerators, particularly those related to sports technology.

NETWORKING REFRESHMENT BREAK (20 Minutes)

Keynote: Gender Equality after the Women’s Euros – are we nearly done (20 mins)

Annamarie Phelps CBE OLY Co-Chair, International Working Group on Women and Sport’s Global Executive; Vice Chair of the British Olympic Association and an advocate for safe and inclusive sport for all. Former Chair of British Rowing, the British Horseracing Authority and former Vice Chair of the British Paralympic Association, she helped steer all organisations through considerable change in structure and governance. She is President of European Rowing and a member of the ExCo of the European Olympic Committees.

Annamarie chaired the Cycling Independent Review Panel into the culture and climate of British Cycling’s high-performance programmes and supported the DCMS ‘Duty of Care Report’, 2017. She is an Associate Consultant to Safe Sport International and serves on the Governance and Safeguarding working groups for World Rowing. Annamarie is a former World Champion in Rowing and represented GB in Women’s eights at Atlanta Olympic Games 1996.

Panel Discussion: Representation in Sports Tech & Broadcasting (35 mins)

How can we improve the representation of women in the sports technology & broadcasting sectors remaining idle in comparison to the presence of men in leadership roles within the industry

• How do we eliminate individual and institutional discrimination?
• Maintaining the needs of our employees and partner organisations
• Make equality and equal treatment a core issue in the development, delivery and refinement of our policies, initiatives and services and in the way we manage our employees

Panel Discussion: Netball HER (35 mins)

Embedding awareness and support of women’s health across Netball in England, from participation to performance.

• What’s new and emerging in the world of female athlete health
• Where is supporting female athlete health being done well at the moment?
• Do you think everyone who works with women and girls in sport needs better training about being female, as mandatory?

NETWORKING LUNCH BREAK (50 Minutes)

Talk: Fastest Woman to Row Across the Atlantic Ocean (15 mins)

Victoria Evans is a Partner at Level Law. As a commercial lawyer with over ten years of experience practising in both the UK and Switzerland, she specialises in sports and media. Having held roles in both European and Olympic federations, as well as commercial media organisations, she benefits from expertise in the development and negotiation of sports sponsorship and licensing, media creation and distribution, and sports governance.

Passionate about the regulation and development of sport, she is an ambassador for UK charity ‘Women in Sport’. In her own time, Victoria is a keen sportswoman and in March 2022 became the fastest female to solo row 2559 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, finishing in 40 days and knocking 8.5 days off the previous Guinness World Record.

Talk: Better people, better athletes (15 mins)

Rob Young MBE
Co-Founder, Switch The Play
Rob is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Switch The Play Foundation, the UK’s only charity dedicated to supporting all sportspeople to successfully transition to life outside sport. Originally established as a social enterprise in 2014 before converting to a charity in 2020, the Foundation supports hundreds of sportspeople each year with personal development and planning for life beyond sport. Rob’s experience has been gained across a variety of roles in sport including, Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games, working with National Governing Bodies of sport, professional sport and national and local government.

Panel Discussion: Esports (30 mins)

How is the Esports industry overcoming the lack of female professional gamers and those from minority backgrounds

• Gender inclusive, so why do men still outnumber women in gaming
• The effectiveness of Esports – how can it become more inclusive, diverse and innovative
• Do companies need to make corporate changes to sponsor more female gamers

NETWORKING REFRESHMENT BREAK (20 Minutes)

Talk: Eating disorders in sport: How an athletic dream developed an eating disorder nightmare (15 mins)

Rebecca is a mental health public speaker, campaigner, vlogger and blogger. Her memoir, Running Free: My Battle with Anorexia, published in 2022, is an Amazon Bestseller and details her harrowing yet inspirational true story of developing anorexia as an athlete. From being a top-ranking junior athlete to repeated and lengthy hospital admissions, Rebecca hit rock bottom and was only a few hours between life and death. Now in recovery, Rebecca uses her experiences to bring awareness to the dangers of eating disorders in sport.

In 2020, Rebecca appeared on BBC Panorama alongside Colin Jackson, discussing eating disorders in sport, and won Vlogger of the Year at the Mental Health Blog Awards, with her YouTube Vlog – My Anorexia Story: Athlete, to Anorexia, to Athlete, having over 2 million views. In 2021, The House of Lords National Plan for Sport and Recreation Committee published her written evidence regarding eating disorders in sport.

Panel Discussion: Drafting & Negotiating Contracts (40 mins)

Drafting and negotiating contracts and agreements within a new era of Womens Sport

• How can agencies influence brands, leagues and athletes by utilising the growth of women’s sport
• How will it affect women sports as they grow?
• The female sports agent in a male dominated industry is about to break up the boys club. Will the rise of womens sport help?

Talk: The Reluctant Activist (15 mins)

Rowena Samarasinhe is a Partner at niche sports, media, entertainment and technology law firm Level and she also owns her own commercial sports consultancy, GENSport.  She specialises in the negotiation and implementation of international sponsorship and broadcast agreements and has worked with some of the largest global sports properties, concluding ground-breaking deals for sports bodies in addition to major endorsement deals with some of the most prolific athletes in the world.  Most recently, Rowena has been working on the development of a franchise rugby union tournament which will see the world’s leading male and female players compete annually around the world.

She sits on a number of sporting boards and until recently was a member of the National Sports Council of Sri Lanka.  She is also a corporate speaker on inclusive leadership and diversity and recently delivered a TEDx talk on Sport and Diversity – The 94% Club: How Sport is Changing the Boardroom.

Locknote: Bollywood and Boundaries (20 mins)

Archie is an award winning British Indian Producer/Director who was appointed as Diversity Producer in a specially created role at BBC Sport Cricket in 2019. She has 25 years of international production experience and has directed films for UEFA, Red Bull and Olympic Broadcasting Services. Archie is a jury member of the BBC Indian Sportswoman Of The Year Awards, special advisor to the MCC Foundation and a board member for Street Child United. Career highlights include working as an Associate Creative Producer on President Obama’s State Banquet in India and being inducted on the Northern Power Women Awards Power List. She has recently completed a specially commissioned three part cricket documentary series called ‘One Billion to One, The Great Indian Cricket Dream’ for the BBC World News Channel and BBC iPlayer. Archie still dreams about being a Bollywood actress, owning an IPL team and playing football for England!

Conference Host Closing Remarks Day 1 (10 mins)

Under Armour Networking Drinks Reception

EIS Awards Gala Dinner Invite Only
in association with Switch the Play