Australian Institute of Sport program to enhance career path options for women athletes

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) has announced the launch of the AIS Athlete Accelerate Program with a focus on increasing career pathway options for women athletes.

The inaugural program, to be funded by the Australian Government’s Office for Women and supported by Sport Australia, will be available for up to 15 athletes.

Advising that the program will identify athletes who could develop and transfer their leadership capabilities and experience in high performance sport to join the wider sporting workforce, AIS Chief Executive, Peter Conde stated “Australian sport needs to develop more women leaders and there is a fantastic talent pool of potential future leaders right in front of us, our elite women athletes.

“The AIS Athlete Accelerate Program is about identifying the leadership skills that already exist in our elite women athletes, then providing them with the professional development to support their transition from the athletic performance stage to the sporting workforce.

“Many elite athletes naturally develop leadership skills throughout their competitive careers, so this program is about supplementing that with professional development in areas such as career action plans and building professional networks.

“We want women who participate in this program to be part of the catalyst for change.

“To ensure this program makes a genuine difference, high performance sport leaders are required to support the application process so they can influence and advocate on behalf of the athlete.

“We need the buy-in of current leaders to ensure we continue breaking down barriers and make real change to our sporting workforce.”

Explaining that the Federal Government is committed to supporting further opportunities for women athletes, Australian Minister for Sport, Richard Colbeck added “there is huge scope to increase the number of women in leadership positions in Australian sport.

“This program will enable more women to further their careers and foster the growth of future athletes and sports leaders, which is exciting.”

The program is open for applications by former and current categorised athletes who are employed by a state or national sporting organisation in a part-time or full-time capacity or those ready to advance their sports administration or coaching career.