Wide Participation in SIGA Summit on Female Leadership in Sport

New York, March 08 (QNA) - The Second edition of SIGA Summit on Female Leadership in Sport, which is organized by the Sports Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), concludes here tomorrow with wide participation. The two-day event coincides with the International Women's Day which falls on March 8 each year. This second SIGA edition, which is held through direct attendance and video communication technology, is sponsored by MasterCard, and is held at the headquarters of the global company in New York City, USA. The first day featured 7 sessions with various topics, namely: Good Governance: The Importance of Parity in the Boardroom and Beyond; Women Leading the Way in Sport; Putting Diversity and Inclusion into Action in Sport; Fair Play On and Off the Pitch: Athlete Activism; Sustain the Game: Changing the Rules; Sport Sponsorship and Integrity: Commercializing the Womens Game; and Sport and Technology: Women at the Cutting Edge. The summit activities will conclude tomorrow with three sessions: The Power of Mentorship; Sport for Development: Empowering Girls Now, and Finding Male Champions: The Role of Men in Promoting Female Leadership in Sport. Nearly 100 international organizations and more than 70 global women figures representing civil society organizations, commercial institutions, and speakers participated in the sessions of the first day, as well as senior officials, executives and decision-makers from various sectors of global sports. The content of the sessions at the summit revolved around womens leadership, leadership in sports and the consolidation of the principle of gender equality in the field of sports at all executive and leadership levels and the achievement of the desired goal and objective. Speakers include Executive Vice Chair at Mastercard, Chair of ICE Clear Europe and chair of the Financial Alliance for Women Ann Cairns; Co-Founder and CEO of GOAL FIVE Ann Kletz; Vice President and General Manager and Marketing Director of Microsoft Sandra Lopez; Principal Chief Executive Officer of Renee M. Brown Inc. and former Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations and Player Relations for WNBA Renee Brown; Head of the Women's Football Association of Australia Sarah Walsh; and ex-footballer Alex Scott. For his part, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) Mohammed bin Hanzab commented on the SIGA summit, stressing the role of women and the need to achieve gender equality with regard to leadership positions in the field of sports, believing this would open the door to more creativity in sports. Bin Hanzab said that SIGA focuses on women's leadership in the field of sports as a forward-looking view of the future, saying this is reflected in a number of global initiatives that have received remarkable global attention at all levels in the field of sports and beyond, and the ultimate goal is to consolidate the principle of gender equality in the field of sports at all executive and leadership levels. With all the development the world is witnessing, the role of women should not remain marginalized or confined to a certain scope in global sports, he said. The Sport Integrity Global Alliance called on global institutions to contribute more to the promotion of gender equality in sport and support womens sport, in a similar way to that of International MasterCard Foundation Microsoft and others, calling at the same time on all concerned people from all over the world to support this summit, which is concerned with womens leadership in Sport, and represents a global event for the expansion of the scope and opportunities of women in the field of sport, in line with what was stated in the unified SIGA standards for governance in sport, which in turn aims to enhance and protect the role of women in sport. (QNA)