According to this CNBC article, 96% of women in C-suite positions played sports.
To name a few, Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, was captain of the high school swim team and played varsity lacrosse, tennis and basketball. At Princeton she played NCAA squash and lacrosse. Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, played cricket in college. Lynn Elsenhans, CEO of Sunoco, played on Rice University’s first women’s basketball team. Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Mondelez, played four varsity sports in high school and NCAA basketball at Cornell.
And let’s not forget the guys.
Walter Robb, former CEO of Whole Foods, was captain of Stanford’s Soccer Team. Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, played rugby at Brown. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, was a high school fencing star. And Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour, and Phil Knight, former CEO of Nike, were football and track athletes respectively.
Sports build character, encourage teamwork, require time management, and prioritize goal-setting so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the athletic backgrounds of these players enable them to pursue excellence in the boardroom.
What else do these CEOs have in common?
They’ve built global companies run by global teams. Their teams are comprised of engineers from China, India, Germany and Ghana, with marketing execs from the UK, Poland, Brazil, or Australia to name a few. And running global teams requires global competence.
Institutions big and small, from Columbus to Carroll, are creating opportunities for Student-Athletes like internships and study abroad. A once discouraged experience is now a growing trend which could be the difference in getting that top recruit! Leveraging education abroad is the secret weapon to prepare athletic departments and future CEOs for a global playing field.
After all, when Athletes graduate, they can’t take the weight room with ’em…
Join the movement.
70.3% of Student-Athletes regret not studying abroad or taking part in an internship due to their athletic participation.
― NCAA GOALS Report
