MELBOURNE: As per its latest ‘Press for Progress’ annual report, Cricket Australia (CA) is striving towards increasing the number of women in key leadership positions as part of its board of directors (BOD) by nearly 40-50% come 2022.
At present, the nine-member BOD has just two women in it, one being Jacqui Hey, who replaced former Australian men’s captain Mark Taylor in late 2018 as the chairperson of CA’s nominations committee.
“We don’t have enough women in leadership positions in cricket yet,” CA CEO Kevin Roberts told ESPNcricinfo.
“We’ve got over 40% of the employed positions in cricket filled by women, which is fantastic, but we’re not at 40% yet or more at a leadership level.
“So we’ve set targets to press for progress within cricket by 2022 to make sure that we are committed as a sport on this path to gender equality. It’s important we do stop and smell the roses, maybe I’m being a little bit harsh, but as with all people in cricket we won’t stop until we get to that final destination.”
The positive aspect for CA is that five out of its 11 executive positions are filled up by women. It is a motivating factor that other sporting federations in Australia are united in empowering women and giving them equal opportunities, on and off the field. They recently signed a pledge for ending gender disparity in payment.
“There is strong awareness of our commitment to improve gender diversity across all levels of the Australian Cricket workforce,” the report states.
“The most significant gains over the past 12 months occurred at a governance level (+6%); only one [state] Board with a single female director remains. Slight gains were also observed across Executive Management, driven by improvements at Cricket Australia (+28% to 50%), and Total Employees, thanks to the rapid growth of the ICC T20 World Cup Local Organising Committee.
“Disappointingly, a slight decline was observed in Other Management – a key measure of emerging leaders, and a factor to be carefully monitored. Commitment to a targeted program of activity to drive further progress is less consistent. Embedding a systematic action plan, alongside a commitment to change, remains a priority.
“Encouraging applications from female candidates remains a key challenge. Cricket needs to improve its reputation amongst female candidates; effective recruitment practices only help if talented women are interested in considering sport – and particularly cricket – as an attractive career path.”
