Stephanie Hilborne OBE

Stephanie Hilborne OBE

Chief Executive

Stephanie joined Women in Sport in 2019 after 27 years working for wildlife and the environment.  She believes in the power of sport to transform lives and that women and girls should not miss out on the resilience, leadership and team skills sport can instil.  She wants to reduce the gender play gap and free up the lives of women and girls in all their diversity to experience the joy of sport.   Since joining the charity, Stephanie has built strong relations in the sports sector and beyond, re-defined the charity’s strategy and developed the staff to align to this, ensuring the team comes from diverse backgrounds and experiences.  Stephanie has been ensuring the charity builds powerful external relationships as it champions need for more women at the top of sport, safe and fair sport for women, and changes to ensure greater equality in access to sport.

Previously, Stephanie was 15 years at the helm of The Wildlife Trusts, a movement of nearly a million members with a huge presence on the ground on a mission to restore the UK’s ecosystems and reconnect people to nature.  A pioneer of landscape-scale ecological restoration, she helped lay the foundations for a White Paper in 2010 and subsequent Environment Act.

Stephanie was on the board of the UK Green Building Council for ten years, latterly as vice chair. She also served on the Government’s Forestry Panel and Smarter Environmental Regulation Review.  She has a degree and Honorary Doctorate from Bristol University, an MSc in Conservation from UCL, and was awarded an OBE in 2010 for Services to Nature Conservation.