Reflections from our President on the 2025 Awards

As all those in attendance will have discovered, it’s impossible to come away from the Women of the Year Lunch without feeling that women can change the world. That together we have the strength, resilience, determination, bravery, and downright daring to see the changes that are needed and the opportunities that exist – or should exist – and make them happen. To make lives, communities and society better, fairer and kinder.

Coming from a lifetime working in and around sport, there have been many times when it has felt that we are only making small steps forward. While sometimes baby steps are all that is possible or needed, it feels that in 2025 we have made a big jump.

As a young child I asked my mum whether I would be able to play rugby and I thought she was going to say something about me being a wheelchair user. Instead, her reply was poignant. She said to me “they won’t let you play”. I didn’t know who ‘they’ was at the time, but remembering that conversation makes me appreciate how we have to look back to see where we want to be.

Did you know that women were only allowed to compete in the marathon in1984 because of bizarrely unfounded health concerns about our physical endurance. One belief was that long-distance running would harm reproductive organs (I read an article years ago that said it was possible that our wombs would drop out!) The same idea was used to stop women competing in the pole vault until 2000. Holding women back from taking part in competitive sport was framed around our supposed fragility. We have come a long way.

There have been so many big sporting moments this year: the women’s Open, the Euro’s and the Rugby World Cup, but it is more than that. It feels like there may be lasting change. Sport, with all the excitement and challenges it brings, is a microcosm of society. It can shine a light, bring people together in a shared moment of joy and also provide a moment of inspiration that plants the the seed of an idea in a person that they can do something different.

Of course in sport there are wins and loses. Success and disappointment. Just like life. There are times when the path forward seems impossible. And times when your work and determination pays off, the path opens up and your goals become achievements.

The Women of the Year Lunch is about celebrating what each of you has achieved, and about providing that moment of inspiration to move forward. Sport may sometimes be more visible than other career paths but what is true is that those outside your area of expertise rarely see how much work goes on behind the scenes. And there is always a lot of work.

Isa Guha, who forged her way in cricket told me a while ago that boys play sport to belong but girls need to belong to play sport. This stuck with me. We need to find a way for women to belong whether that is in sport or not. There is strength in belonging.

Everyone who was together in the room today was there because they have done something amazing and are changing the world for others; each showing other women what can be achieved and inspiring everyone. And what I really hope is that everyone feels like they belong.

I hope our guests haven’t just had a lovely lunch with great company (that is a given) but that they made the most of the time together to learn and connect to others.

If there is one thing I want everyone to take away from today though, it is that they belong. Each guest belongs to an amazing group of women who are changing the world. To them, congratulations and thank you.