Conference celebrates Women in Golf Leadership Programme
Over 100 current and future women leaders in golf gathered from across the world in St Andrews recently to celebrate the success and sustained impact of The R&A Women in Golf Leadership Programme (WIGLP).
The ‘Rise and Aspire’ conference was held to mark the fifth anniversary of the WIGLP with attendees reflecting with pride on their personal development and career progression thanks to participation in the programme.
The first WIGLP was held in 2018, beginning a drive to increase the number of women working at mid-to-senior levels in golf organisations around the world. It is run and significantly funded by The R&A as a key part of its commitment to the Women in Golf Charter.
In total, 140 women from 34 countries have completed the Leadership Development and Foundation programmes over the last five years and the majority attended the milestone event in St Andrews. A further 40 women have embarked on their own learning and development journey in the last few weeks.
Tremendous success
Participants from Australia, Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, Portugal and Serbia are among those to have graduated.
Martin Slumbers, CEO of The R&A, was among those who attended the conference and he said, “An important driver for the launch of the Women in Golf Charter was to encourage and support more women to work in the sport and develop their careers. It has been a tremendous success so far and will continue to grow.
“As we try to attract more and more senior women into the game working wise, it was apparent that there wasn’t enough experience and opportunity. So, in effect, we said we are going to create our own programmes and pathways to allow women to have the opportunity to learn, grow and develop their skills and go on to more senior positions.
“We are creating a more senior workforce for the industry and I am very proud of what we are doing, and the women who have gone through the programme and made it a success.”
Diverse and inclusive
Jackie Davidson, Director – Golf Development at The R&A, has helped drive the programme with a view to providing women with more opportunities in the golf industry.
“The Women in Golf Leadership Programme is our way of demonstrating The R&A’s commitment to our own Charter and ensuring that we are supporting more women to have careers in golf or volunteering in the sport,” said Davidson. “We want to make sure that golf is diverse and inclusive. We want to see more women leading in different organisations throughout golf.
“That’s really how we mapped out the programme – what were the outcomes we were trying to achieve and then we determined how we were going to go about doing that.
“We were very keen to ensure that it was about the personal development of the individual. It isn’t a course, it’s a journey of transformational change. The women who’ve come through the programme have visibly changed in their confidence, self-assuredness and ability to project themselves forward. Their strength of character has shone through. Overall, they are more equipped to face challenges. I’m not saying we have been solely responsible for their career progression but we have certainly contributed.”
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