Our People

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.

Lisa joined Women in Sport in August 2021 as Partnerships and Consultancy Manager, creating meaningful and lasting partnerships across the sport sector, and beyond, to further our mission.

Alongside our partnerships, she now leads the organisation’s advocacy work as well, as we continue to increase our impact, break down barriers and empower more women and girls to be active.

Lisa brings with her a wealth of knowledge and experience from 15 years working in the sport sector. She started within Local Authority sport development before moving to Swim England and more recently spent 8 years working as a Project Manager and Consultant.

Lisa plays and umpires netball as well as taking part in mass participation triathlon events and believes whole heartedly in the power that sport and physical activity has to improve lives.

Favourite sporting moment? Still (and probably always!) being a Games Maker at the Aquatics Centre at London 2012.

Tanya is a leading academic in the field of girls and women and their interface with sport and exercise at each life stage. A driven and insightful researcher, innovator and agent of change, she has considerable management and strategic experience in business, academia and charity sectors. Tanya has an unwavering passion for our cause.

Tanya has experience of leading large scale qualitative and quantitative research and commissioned projects working with National Governing Bodies, leisure sector partners and corporates. She has led the charity’s ground breaking and influential work on reframing sport for teenage girls.

Able to quickly cut through to the key issues at play she leads our work to amass evidence, design and delivery interviews, focus groups, online ethnographies and surveys. She has well honed skills in synthesising and interpreting findings from multiple data sources to develop rich insights, translating into solutions through innovation.

Tanya joined Women in Sport part time in 2017 continues to lecture in Sports Psychology at the Open University.

Harinie is our people magician and has had a long career devoted to social change, working and volunteering in multiple charities since her childhood in Sri Lanka.

As Chartered Financial Analyst, Harinie has a strong financial background and is responsible for all our financial, operational and human resources and is also one of our finest advocates.

Her passion is driven by our belief that when sport includes women and girls it helps to tackle gendered economic and health inequalities, but most importantly it will create a better society for all.

Harinie’s parents instilled in her strong values and yet never imagined, as a girl, that she might be part of the sports sector! Now a fitness advocate and absolutely convinced that Strong is Not a Size, Harinie is championing the culture that we want to see.

She believes everyone needs to be met where they’re at, treated with respect and understood so that we can ensure they feel they can belong, whether in society, sport or in the House of Sport where our office is based!

Sarah has a life-long love of sport, inspired by her netball coach who didn’t write her off just because she is 5ft 1! On moving to Manchester, she joined a touch rugby club to make friends and ended up representing England, to date winning two European golds and two World Cup bronze medals. She now serves as a Non-Executive Director at England Touch.

An award-winning journalist, Sarah has more than 20 years’ experience in media and communications, working across national and international media brands, charities and commercial organisations.

At Women in Sport, she leads communications, campaigns, fundraising and partnerships, raising the charity’s profile, growing income and inspiring change. Her work has delivered bold campaigns, secured national media coverage, built brand partnerships and increased donations, all with the aim of breaking down barriers for women and girls in sport.

As an advocate of women’s sport Sarah is passionate about ensuring every woman and girl can experience the joy, skills and benefits of sport. She believes the resilience, teamwork and leadership she has learnt through sport have been vital in every aspect of her life.

Joanna’s background is in elite sport, with a successful sporting career as a member of the Great Britain Cycling Team which included gold medals at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Following her retirement from elite sport, Joanna attended Manchester Metropolitan University and completed a degree in Human Biology, with her dissertation focussing on physical activity and health, specifically the relationship between physical activity levels and Alzheimer’s disease, for which she won an award from the Royal Society of Biology.

Joanna was motivated to join Women in Sport as she is passionate about equal opportunities for women and girls in sport, firmly believing in the huge benefits of sport for both mental and physical health. Having seen a seismic shift in the cycling world during her career (at the Beijing Olympic Games there were 10 Olympic track cycling events, but only 3 of these were women’s events compared to 7 for the men), Joanna is keen to continue the drive to promote women’s sport and make it a viable career option for young girls to aspire to. Her role as Partnerships Manager involves developing strategic partnerships and reach within both the sports and corporate sectors to further the mission of the charity.

When not working at Women in Sport, Joanna also enjoys commentating and can regularly be heard on Eurosport’s coverage of track cycling and women’s road racing.

Joanna was awarded an MBE for services to cycling in 2013, and describes the investiture as a hugely humbling experience, but the main challenge was not falling over whilst wearing high heels when curtseying for the Queen!

Now referring to herself as a “fair weather” cyclist, Joanna still enjoys cycling into the office as well as running, swimming and going to the gym. Time for a triathlon perhaps?!

Rachel has spent fourteen years in the charity sector and started out in a succession of frontline political jobs before joining the RSPCA’s public affairs and campaigns team. She was there for nine years, working her way up to Public Affairs Manager for Westminster. In that time, she worked on dozens of different campaigns, Bills and events.

After having a very negative relationship with sport in school, and especially as a teenager in secondary school, Rachel rediscovered it as an about-to-be-30-year-old and haven’t looked back since. She’s found that sport has genuinely changed her life for the better and wants to use her skills to allow it to change other girls’ and women’s lives too.

As well as an enthusiastic but mediocre runner she’s now a passionate weightlifter, as much for the mental health benefits as the physical. Rachel strongly believes that there’s a sport for everyone but too many girls and women are being prevented from finding it because of stubborn stereotypes and negative narratives. In her younger years, Rachel felt that she missed out on experiencing the joy of sport in her younger years because she felt there wasn’t a place for her in sport.

Rachel has joined the team at Women in Sport because she wants to make sure that future generations of young girls don’t face the same issues that she did. As Policy and Public Affairs Manager, Rachel’s role is to lead on developing our policy positions and on our relationship with political and policymaking stakeholders across the UK and at all levels of government.

Ciara joined Women in Sport in October 2024 to lead on Women’s Coaching, primarily building a movement to help transform the culture for women to feel they belong and thrive in coaching.

Volunteering in sport in childhood eventually led to a varied career across the sport sector where she has a developed a good depth of experience whilst keeping a drive to understand and empower people. Beginnings from frontline coaching and lifeguarding through to working in a sporting body, active partnership, local authority, non-departmental public body and to a social enterprise focussing on youth employability and community facility development.

She is proud to be a part of contributing to Women in Sport’s vision, and particularly passionate about working collaboratively to enable more women and girls experiencing the joy and benefits of coaching.

Her favourite moment of her sporting life is eight year old Ciara, who could finally play football in a team to put on my football boots, shin pads and kit and have a game! Adult Ciara is constantly inspired by women and girls playing sport or being active and overcoming barriers to do this each day.

Sport has always been a huge motivator in Shereen’s life. She discovered her passion for athletics around 20 years ago when she swapped her ballet shoes for track spikes and has since competed at several senior championships, including the UK National Championships. Motivated to learn more about the science behind fuelling the body for exercise Shereen undertook a post graduate diploma in Sports Nutrition while juggling her training and work commitments.

Sport has afforded Shereen with great discipline and independence, a diverse social network and provided her with opportunities to travel. However, it has also opened her eyes to the challenges and barriers to participation that many girls and women face.

Shereen has enjoyed a varied career within the publishing, fitness and construction industries supporting teams in sales, administration and operations. She brings her knowledge and experience to Women in Sport, as People and Project Officer, originally leading our Big Sister project, which was designed to create a supportive pathway to encourage and empower teenage girls to participate in sport.

Georgie has spun a mix of professional plates, including heading up brand partnerships, retail management, and business development within the third sector.

As of January 2024 she brings her knowledge and passion to Women in Sport as an Operations Manager, supporting the organisation to function as smoothly as possible.

Growing up with a very athletic brother, it seemed as though he was destined to be the ‘sporty one’ and Georgie the ‘arty one’. It wasn’t until later in life – finding herself at a point in life where she needed to improve her mental and physical health – that she realised you could be both!

Having shown no interest in running whatsoever, and lacking belief that she could run further than the end of the road, she was amazed when she started running regularly that she a) enjoyed it and b) felt confident enough to give a half marathon a go. She will always remember the speech her Dad gave on her wedding day, pointing out that she beat her brother’s time!

Georgie has practiced yoga for 20 years and during the pandemic formally qualified as a teacher. She is passionate about sharing the healing and holistic properties yoga and movement can have with others and is keen to share the overwhelmingly positive impact yoga can have on your life.

Her hope is that all women not only get the opportunity, but are actively encouraged and supported in finding a space and a community to participate in sport.

Meg joined Women in Sport in October 2023 as an Insight Manager, leading and assisting with the charity’s ground-breaking research to deeply understand and reframe the environment and culture surrounding women and girls in sport.

Her experience of working in victim-led and children’s Services initiated her passion and drive to action change and empower women and girls in all areas and stages of life. Formerly working as a researcher and analyst within the Ministry of Defence, Meg has experience of planning, managing, conducting, and reporting large scale quantitative and qualitative research projects into policy and people related strategies. Her work within the Civil Service included the modernisation of the RAF, which aimed create a more fair and inclusive environment for Service personnel and their families.

Recently completing her postgraduate studies in Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural Psychology at Brunel University London, Meg has demonstrated and advocated for the importance of fine tuning how gender and intersectionality are researched to better understand the differences of women and girls from all walks of life.

Meg believes that this gendered and cross-cultural lens has resulted in more valid and representative insights into the different barriers women and girls face both personally and socially. Meg believes whole heartedly that no two people are the same and by taking a holistic approach to research and improving the way research is led, we can improve lives of all women and girls.

Biggest sporting inspiration? Dame Kelly Holmes!

Dani joined Women in Sport in January 2025 as Insight Manager, supporting the charity to understand the needs and aspirations of women and girls in sport and physical activity, in all their diversity and across the life stages.

Dani brings six years of research experience from social and policy focused market research agencies, where she worked across a variety of topics, from modern slavery and knife-crime, to healthy eating and food waste. She also brings 12 years’ experience from her prior career, most of which was spent in digital marketing for charities, including Teach First.

Dani takes a keen interest in fitness, regularly attending weights, HIIT, barre and yoga classes. Her relationship with physical activity began with dancing, particularly ballet, where she developed an appreciation for the positive impact activities have on other areas of life – from developing discipline and resilience, to forming community.

As an adult, Dani has pushed herself out of her comfort zone to try team and racket sports (with mixed results!). Through doing so, she has realised what she’s been missing out on, and looks forward to contributing to Women in Sport’s vision that no-one is excluded from the joy, fulfilment and lifelong benefits of sport.

Naomi joined Women in Sport in February 2024 as an Insight Manager, where she works to help drive the charity’s innovative and powerful Insight work. Over the last eight years Naomi has developed her skills as a mixed-methods researcher, contributing to insight work across the public and private sectors.

As a bookish teen with a very sporty brother, Naomi didn’t truly feel sport was something for her whilst growing up. That started to change when she was encouraged to sign up for half marathon by a university friend. Despite finding it incredibly tough, completing the run had a huge impact on her sense of self and marked a step into a new relationship with sport.

Since then, she has been part of the running community WMN Run, made her way around trail marathons, and even taken on a solo run of the beautiful West Highland Way in Scotland. She is also a keen climber, who loves the physicality of bouldering and is developing her rope climbing skills. She has been fortunate to be able to travel to climbing spots across Europe and sees time outdoors in nature as a powerful tool to support both physical and mental health.

Naomi is passionate about the transformative impact sport can have on the lives of women and girls. She is driven to challenge the deeply intrenched inequality that still exists for women and girls in sport.

Julia joined Women in Sport in January 2024 with a remit to turbo-charge our 40^th anniversary year and amplify the voice of the charity through training and broadcasting.

Julia has worked as a BBC presenter and reporter for the last 25 years, covering natural disasters, terrorist attacks and domestic politics. She has won major awards for her coverage of mental health, special needs education, and ageing. Julia was inspired to join Women in Sport after interviewing our CEO Stephanie Hilborne OBE and realising that she was deeply drawn to our mission.

Sport is a constant in Julia’s family life. Her father was an international scrambler who taught Julia to ride an off-road mini race bike in the 70s, she was a county gymnast in the 80s, and played netball through school and university. She is now supporting her two very sporty daughters to chase their dreams in hockey, cricket, climbing and gymnastics.

Julia also tutors English literature students and is a passionate theatre-goer. She was taught Shakespeare at University by Dr Germaine Greer.

Sakara joined Women in Sport in July 2023 as a Fundraising Officer. As our resident Kiwi, she is a dynamic fundraiser who is helping build and elevate our fundraising efforts and supporter engagement during this exciting phase of growth for the charity.

Originally from New Zealand, she brings with her a deep passion for both sports and women’s rights. She plays both football and netball and believes in the power of sports to bring people together!

Her journey in the non-profit sector has provided her with valuable experience volunteering with various organisations. She has also worked in government and legal roles and will bring a multidimensional perspective to her work.

Now, as part of her role in Women in Sport, her goal is to contribute with the organisation to help work towards a future where gender equality is at the forefront of the sporting world. By bolstering revenue and capacity she believes we can create a lasting impact and ensure that women and girls have equal opportunity to pursue their sporting dreams!

Josh joined Women in Sport in March 2024 as Projects and Solutions Officer where he works closely with our Insight team to contribute to their ground-breaking research, as well as assist Women in Sport’s wider projects.

Josh grew up surrounded by sport and loved trying every sport he could get his hands on. Josh’s experience of sport and physical activity was facilitated by many strong female coaches that helped him build resilience, overcome confidence issues, and create a safe space for him to find joy and fulfilment through sport.

Growing up, Josh quickly noticed that the experiences he was given in sport are often few and far between for women and girls. With these inequalities that women and girls face in mind, Josh has joined the team because he wants to ensure that every woman and girl at any life-stage can have the life-changing and affirming sporting experiences he has had.