Pitch for success

It goes without saying that participation in sport, at any level, is good for your health and wellbeing but could it also be good for women’s career progression? That was the theory that KPMG, in partnership with the 30% Club, tested by commissioning iReach to do an innovative study on the effects of sports participation on Irish women in business.

It surveyed 300-plus women in managerial roles and found that 75% had participated in sport. That figure, significantly, rose to 90% for female CEOs. Eighty-eight per cent believed the skills they learned through sport directly benefitted their professional work, with teamwork (90%), confidence (86%) and self-belief (63%) among the most transferable.

These and more of the findings were brilliantly illuminated when KPMG assembled a truly stellar panel to discuss them at the Platform X technology hub in Dublin city centre. It comprised of Ireland football manager Vera Pauw, CEO of the Federation of Irish Sport Mary O’Connor, KPMG’s five-time All-Ireland winning Dublin footballer Sinead Aherne and Paul McCabe, CEO of VLE Therapeutics and a member of the 30% Club Ireland steering committee.

The event was chaired by Sarah O’Connor, Head of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship at Wilson Hartnell who opened by highlighting KPMG's ongoing support of female superstars like golfer Leona Maguire, jockey Rachael Blackmore and the Dublin ladies’ Gaelic football team and their involvement in seminal events such as the 20X20 ‘Can’t See- Can’t Be’ campaign’ and the KPMG Women’s Irish Open golf tournament. She also noted that KPMG supported boxing hero Katie Taylor in her nascent career “long before she had sponsors, hard as that is to believe now.”

Each speaker gave personal testimony of the skills they brought from sport to benefit their business careers, particularly the ability to plan, strategise, work as a part of team and communicate well. 

Pauw, who will lead Ireland in their historic first World Cup in Australia this year, revealed that she started her first job in the business of football – as head coach and director of women’s football at the Scottish FA - just four weeks after playing her last game.

“I was a centre-back so I was probably already a coach on the field,” she joked. “But I already had my coaching badges and experience because everything you do as a player teaches you to plan and prepare. Team sport especially teaches you how to deal with the fact that everybody is different. Everyone has their own talents and ambition and we work best by combining the best of all of those.”

Pauw applies this principle not only to her players but to her backroom team and she advised: “Always focus on what people do best, not what they cannot do. I think this is very similar to business management.”

Seven-time All Star Sinead Aherne gave some particularly unique insight into how she has juggled her phenomenal football achievements with her career progression at KPMG. That extraordinary sporting commitment was underlined when she admitted to needing unusual daily injury treatment in an oxygen chamber before the Covid-delayed 2020 All-Ireland final. “As anyone will tell you December is a busy time in professional services. I remember sitting in this hyperbaric chamber with my laptop, trying to close a deal, three days before the All-Ireland final,” she revealed, laughing.

But Aherne also stressed that you don’t have to be an elite athlete or even a player to gain the benefits that sport brings to business. She revealed that the Dublin ladies’ team use the motivational phrase, ‘What you put in we all take out’, which is equally apposite for corporate success. “There’s so much crossover. You can pull so much of what you learn in sport into business and vice versa,” she said. 

Sinead Aherne says “Sport helps get rid of society’s unconscious bias about where women can get to and how high the ceiling is. There is none! Sport gives women so many life skills - communication, self-belief and confidence, teamwork. Through sport these unconsciously become part of your fabric.”

Mary O’Connor, who won a remarkable 12 All-Irelands for Cork in Gaelic football and camogie, now leads an umbrella body that represents over 100 sporting organisations which, though largely volunteer-based, are worth €3.7 billion annually to the Irish economy.

O’Connor traces her razor-sharp ability to strategize before meeting business leaders and government ministers directly to what she learnt playing sport. There were nods of agreement when she cited Pele’s famous quote: “I might not be the fastest player from A to B…but I don’t always start at A”.

O’Connor stressed that women don’t have to be players. They can benefit from multiple volunteer roles as coaches, managers, coaches or administrators though often need extra encouragement to try these. O’Connor also believes the new post-pandemic hybrid working model will offer women more opportunities to get involved. 

Almost half (45%) of those surveyed said they look for participation in sport on job applications but Paul McCabe said that, in his experience, women rarely mention this.

He mentioned one notable experience of recruiting for a Head of Engineering. A female candidate had no reference to sport on her CV but when he dug deeper revealed that she played club camogie at a high level and also coached it.

Once conversing about sport she immediately lit up to reveal her true strengths and personality, he noted. “She got the job,” he added. “Women are missing a trick. I’ve no doubt if it was a man he would have included sport on that CV, even if he’d only played under-six.”

Melíosa O’Caoimh, Ireland Chair of the 30% Club, described the discussion as “absolutely fascinating”, noting that the transferable skills described were “almost the toolbox of a perfect business leader. This innovative research reinforces once again the value of inclusion and equal participation for boys and girls in education and in sport.”

Wrapping up proceedings, KPMG's Rio Howley spoke of the firms commitment to women in sport; “We’re delighted to be involved in carrying out this research. We have seen first-hand the impact that sport has on the lives of women in this country through our sponsorship of the KPMG Women's Irish Open golf tournament and previous women in sport initiatives like the 20x20 campaign.

Howley says so many people in KPMG are enthused by the subject of women in sport – and at every level. “We’re thrilled to see how sport has influenced the careers of so many women in business, and we hope that those who see these results will be encouraged to participate in sport - regardless of standard or level - so that they, too, can advance their careers and reach their full potential.”

In addition to its support of women’s sport in Ireland, KPMG also works to inspire greatness amongst young Irish talent through its vision for learning and empowering people to reach their full potential and be extraordinary.

As part of this vision KPMG, along with Enterprise Ireland support the award-winning Going for Growth programme which helps ambitious female entrepreneurs in achieving their growth aspirations.