Lisa O’Keefe: Uniting women’s sport across the world
S16 Ep 6
My guest today is Lisa O'Keefe, a former Scottish international rugby player who was a director at Sport England for 14 years and is now Secretary General of the International Working Group on Women and Sport, the world's largest network dedicated to gender equality in sport and physical activity.
Lisa is responsible for leading the Secretariat while it's hosted in the UK until 2026.
A passionate advocate for women's sport and breaking down barriers to participation, Lisa led groundbreaking insight work at Sport England, which paved the way for much innovation, including the globally recognised This Girl Can campaign.
Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.
Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media
A Fearless Women production
This transcript has been autogenerated so please forgive typos.
Sue Anstiss Host00:02
Hello and welcome to the Game Changers. I'm Sue Anstiss, and this is the podcast where you'll hear from trailblazing women in sport who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. What can we learn from their journeys as we explore some of the key issues around equality in sport and beyond? I'd like to start with a big thank you to our partners, Sport England, who support The Game Changers through a national lottery award.
00:33
My guest today is Lisa O'Keefe, a former Scottish international rugby player, who was a director at Sport England for 14 years and is now Secretary General of the International Working Group on women and sport, the world's largest network dedicated to gender equality in sport and physical activity. Lisa's responsible for leading the secretariat while it's hosted in the UK until 2026. A passionate advocate for women's sport and breaking down barriers to participation, Lisa led ground breaking insight work at Sport England, which paved the way for much innovation, including the globally recognised this Girl Can campaign. Lisa, many people know you from your years of working in sport, but many may not know as much about you as an athlete, so I wonder if I can start there, and how was sport first a part of your life as you were growing up?
Lisa O’Keefe Guest01:34
It was just ever present, Sue. To be honest, I was one of four children. I was the youngest, I was the only girl, and I have still vivid memories of being down the local park with my big brothers in goal as they played football.
Sue Anstiss Host01:53
I was the only girl. I had three brothers as well too. So a similar start out in a sporty life there too. And how did you first come to find rugby?
Lisa O’Keefe Guest02:03
I first became aware of the sport when I was at school, a school which had been an old boy school and had only just started to take girls into the cohorts, and one of the links that the school had was with the Scottish Rugby Union, and so every year you could apply for schoolboy tickets to go and watch matches at Murrayfield 25 pence. I remember queuing up to apply for these tickets and I remember the grumbling from the boys in the queue who were grumbling about the fact that girls were here now, and now there's more people wanting tickets. You know this can't be fair. These girls are wanting these tickets for the rugby. I mean, they don't even understand the game, do they? And I remember that so clearly. Now, for me and my childhood, going to Murrayfield was one of the most defining moments of my life. Back in the 80s and early 90s, Scotland were quite good, so you know, I was able to watch some amazing Grand Slam victories, and those days have stuck with me, but so too has this view that somehow we weren't allowed to be there. That was my first introduction to the sport. And then roll forward. I was in my final year at university up in Aberdeen and I'd come down to Edinburgh to watch my local men's club side play with my dad and we were standing up in the bar at half time and over in the far corner there was a group of women literally on this muddy corner, right up in the back throwing a ball around, and my dad and I just stood there transfixed and we didn't say anything. And then he turned to me and he went you could do that. And at that point I was into my athletics, I was a member of my athletic club, I was playing hockey, I just went. No, I couldn't do that. And he went. Of course you could. And in that moment I sort of thought well, maybe my instant reaction was girls, women don't play rugby, right. So this had just absolutely blown my mind and he said, well, we should just go down and have a wee look. And so we went down, have a wee look, and by the end of it he persuaded me to go along on the Tuesday and you know it was his enthusiasm and love for the game and his encouragement that meant I did go along and I mean wow, that. You know that was one of those sliding doors moments. The rest was history and I I came into rugby in possibly one of the most exciting times in Scotland.
04:47
This was 1993, Sue, right, so we're talking a few years ago now 1993, and I played. I played a few sessions, absolutely loved it. I mean I absolutely loved it. But I had to go back to university up in Aberdeen to finish my final couple of terms and in the intervening time there was the biggest of hiatus possible in women's rugby because the World Cup had been due to be taking part that year in Holland. For various reasons, the, the Dutch, pulled out of hosting the Sue Brodie and Sandra Colamartino both of whom played at Edinburgh Accies, so the club I was a member of, they sat in the bar and they went. Well, this just isn't right. We'll sort this, we'll host the World Cup. So not only had I come into this new sport, I've come into this new sport with an amazing group of women who did organise the first World Cup. So so here was this new sport for me. We had this amazing tournament, the world you know coming to watch women's rugby, and I remember being at Boroughmuir watching Scotland play England. I mean, England were fantastic, right. They went on to win the World Cup. But you know there's about 5000 and I haven't seen that many in Boroughmuir for a men's game. So I joined, I think, at just the right time, with a group of women, the, the coach, the men who were the coaches, just everybody super supportive. There was no question of why. Why are we doing this? So this is odd. It it was just like the most exciting time to come into rugby and yeah, I mean that was 1993.
06:30
In 1994 I got my first cap for Scotland. Oh wow, and I mean talk about fast track, right. So I started in 1993. I went away for a few months. I came back, I joined Edinburgh Accies and they were like they were best team in Scotland and just full of just fantastic players, and they put me in straight in at number eight.
06:53
So here's a here's an unusual story for you. So back in 1994, so you, you couldn't. You couldn't do tactical substitutions. You could only be substituted onto a rugby field. It's literally you know they'd carried somebody off, you know someone had fallen off them. It was literally that you know to get on. So you'd be a substitute. You'd never really expect to get on the pitch now. I hadn't even been selected for Scotland.
07:18
I've been selected for Scotland Day and it was the first Scotland Day game against Wales and we were playing in Wales and we played the game we won. I mean it was terrible conditions. We had terrible conditions really muddy, rained the whole way through. I was playing at number seven, open side flanker, which for rugby players I know it's the best position on the pitch. You just just run around and have fun, right like the responsibility of a number eight and I'd at best time ever.
07:52
We won the game five-nil and we were celebrating this in the changing room and there's a, the door flies open and it's one of the team managers to the Scotland team saying Lisa, lisa, we need you in the car now. There's been a problem. We need you on the bench. We need you on the bench for the Scotland game this afternoon. I didn't even have time to shower. I did not have to shower.
08:15
They bundled me into the back of this car, still in my Scotland day kit, covering mud, get me to the changing rooms. Literally, they put a shirt on me, a clean chair of shores and they're like, you're on the bench and I'm thinking, oh, this is amazing, this is all amazing, but you know, no expectation of getting onto the the pitch, so sort of 10 minutes to go in the game. One of my teammates gets knocked out as the hero is. I'd never expected it. So, yeah, Scotland, we're leading five now. Muddy conditions, wales had to put in a thumb on the Scotland 10 meter line and they talk about stressful situation, you know just. And I had to go in at second row, not my position, and I just remember just thinking just don't move, just hold the storm firm, just do your job, just you know. And yeah, we held out everyone five mile. So so that day I got my first cap for Scotland day and Scotland beat Wales twice that day, both five now. But wow, you know, what an introduction to international rugby it's amazing, isn't it?
09:26
are you a Scotland rugby number 34 I believe in is yeah yeah, um yeah, I feel old when I look at the list now at Murrayfield of all the players, but it it was, like you know, for me it was. It was amazing because because back then you know obviously a lot younger, but I didn't have any of the injuries that then dogged me throughout my career. So so at that point I could just run around so freely and it was just so much fun and I just found the sport I loved. You know, all the other sports were were great, of course, but nothing captivated me like rugby did and where did you play your, your club rugby?
Sue Anstiss Host10:10
so you're living in and I guess, what did you do after university? You're working, living in Scotland still yeah, so.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest10:17
So after university I came back to Edinburgh and thinking that I was, you know, going to have this career in finance. You know, I'd done all my business degree and, and you know, was intent on on either staying in Edinburgh or perhaps moving down to London and, yeah, playing my rugby at Edinburgh Ackies. So you know, it was quite a sort of stereotypical in some ways. You know, edinburgh, worked in the city, played rugby, and I remember some of the news articles at the time sort of saying very kind of stereotypical, however, you know, but she's a woman, so I had broken them all slightly there and, yeah, loving my time at Edinburgh Ackies. But then the massive curveball arrived which was a rupture of my ACL playing in a sevens tournament in Mull. Now we talk a lot about ACL injuries now, but I'll tell you nobody was really talking about them in 1995. Like you know, the moment I did it I knew I'd done something really bad, because I heard it go and the pain was, oh, it was terrible, but I didn't know what it was. Nobody knew what it was Really, nobody knew what it was and I was stuck on Mull, a wee island on the West coast of Scotland, with no prospect of getting home that day and, just you know, trying to do my best with it whilst everyone else having a great time, I mean, suffice to say, by the time I got back to the hospital at Edinburgh Infirmary, you know, my knee was the size was ridiculous, and I just thought I don't know, this is terrible, whatever this is. And that was actually when I had a moment of massive good fortune, because the doctor who was in A&E that day was also a player at Edinburgh Aches, and he knew straight away what it was. And he said to me Lisa, we will do our best to fast track this through as best we can. Yeah, so I had my first ACL reconstruction in 1995.
12:28
The problem for me, though, if that was the good luck, the misfortune, the bad luck for me, was that it was the early days of support from the National Lottery or from the governing body. So it was. We were still with the Scottish Women's Rugby Union. There was an allegiance at the SIU, but no formal partnership. The SWRU got funding from the National Lottery through Sports Scotland, but they were basically given a number of places. So we fund the places. You decide which players are on those places. If you had an injury and you were unable to take one of those playing spots. Your funding stopped, your support stopped and actually the funding was neither here nor there. It was the support was the key, and that meant I had this ACL rupture. It had been repaired by the surgeon, but then nobody was there to give me any advice or support as to how to recover from this. And I literally, I'm, literally, I'm, you know, going into libraries trying to find things, the internet, and really, with the not really the source of information it is now I don't have any physio help and, not surprisingly, as a result, I had my second ACL rupture, and that one was the one that really was the big game changer for me, because that one was quite devastating.
14:02
My priority was not to get back to rugby, my priority was to, not was to be able to walk down the road without my knee giving away, which was literally what was happening, and it was a quality of life moment for me because I saw unhappy. I mean it's definitely unhappy. Anybody who has had a long-term injury will understand just what a struggle it is, and you know I was. What was I? I was 23, 24. I'd had this point, two major surgeries, and I still wasn't sure what the outcome of those were going to be. I couldn't play any sport, nothing, and I wasn't really sure properly how to rehab. And I also at that point felt I'm not sure I'm enjoying my job either. I'm so miserable. So I've got to change something. I've got to change something. And I think it's when you're absolutely at that, at what felt like rock bottom for me, suddenly you think well, maybe I can't teach a few things because it can't. It can't get any worse than this. And I spoke to my parents and I said I want to give up my job. I want to give up my job, I want to full time try and rehab this knee and I want to go back to university. I want to do something different. I just want to. I just want to change. I just want to change. And they were so super supportive and I went back to university. So this was 1996.
15:40
And yeah, went to Edinburgh University to do a masters in sport, leisure and physical education because I thought I love sport. I'm not going to be able to play it again, or maybe I just I'm quite interested in it. I'm just interested in it. I'm always curious, I'm curious about everything and yeah, let's just do that. And by going to Edinburgh University to do that, I was out at Murray House where all the PE students were, and I suddenly had access to fantastic physios, strengthening conditioning coaches, people who understood this condition and really wanted to help. And so, yeah, that's what I did and had an amazing year there, actually just putting myself back together in lots of different ways.
16:34
And I saw an advert in the library for what was then the Women's Sports Foundation, now women in sport, and they were looking for a development officer. I looked at that and I thought, hmm, that looks interesting. I wonder if I could persuade them. They would want me. You know, I'd done some rugby coaching courses, so I was coaching Edinburgh Aches. I'd started to do my SRU coaching courses Naturally the only women on the course back then and so I'd started to do my coaching. I'd gone by to uni and I thought, well, maybe there's something I can do in the sports world. My masters had taught me so much about the structures of sport, the history of sport in the UK.
17:25
It was also quite an exciting time as well, because the national lottery had been expanded so previously. When the lottery first started, they could only invest money in facilities. But this was a change point where the lottery was now able to be used for revenue projects, and so it kind of just opened the door to lots of opportunities for organisations working in sport to be able to access lottery funding, of which Women's Sports Foundation now women in sport were one of those. They were able to receive an increased grant. It meant they were able to double their workforce from one to two, so Kathy Hughes was no longer on our own, and I find myself working for Women in Sport from their small office in Hither Green just outside of Leosham one of those sliding doors moments.
18:19
That was such a great decision.
18:22
It was a great time to join, because with only two people suddenly there's just lots of opportunity to attend meetings, meet people at senior levels within organisations, speak at conferences and start to raise my own profile in a way that you know, in your first year working in the sports industry you shouldn't have been speaking on platforms with the chief exec of Sport England or National Coaching Foundation, as it was.
18:53
But that was exactly what I was doing, and the other reason it was a great move was I'd always imagined that I might move to London because I wanted to play rugby for Richmond, richmond Rugby Club. The forwards coach, mark Francis, was also the forwards coach at Scotland, and anybody who knows Mark Francis you know he has a great ability to make you believe anything is possible. He's just such a positive, positive individual. And so, by moving to London taking this new job, the first thing I did was turn up at Richmond, not to play, but just to actually see Mark and just kind of talk about where I was and what was happening. And before I knew it, not only was I now working for Women in Sport, I was now the 13th coach at Richmond. Oh, wow, I mean, that was fantastic as well.
Sue Anstiss Host19:52
And your coaching career went from strength to strength and you ended up joining the governing body team at the National Coaching Foundation as it was heading up to Leeds and, if I'm honest, it just wasn't the right move.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest20:05
I guess I was now, having made that big step of leaving Edinburgh and going down to London and recognising the need to do the things that were really good for me, I thought this was the right move, but it just wasn't. The people were lovely, the job was really interesting, but it just culturally I didn't quite fit there and the way the organisation was seeking to work with governing bodies just didn't sort of work with my philosophy. I can't believe I did it. I left within nine months. The reason why I left was a job had come up. So first of all, I was really miserable. I wanted to go back to London, I wanted to go back to Richmond, I wanted to go back to the sort of positive environment there.
20:53
And a job had come up at the English Sports Council, as was Sport England in their southern regional office based in Reading down in Cavisham, and it was for a newly created team, their active communities team. So this was an example of where the Lottery Revenue Funding had created this whole new strand of work in Sport England and it was about how sport could help tackle inequalities and help people in positions of disadvantage benefit and access sport. And I looked at that and I went I would love to do that, I'd love to do that. And I went in with no expectation again that they'd give me the job. And, yeah, I was very, very fortunate that day that not only did they offer me the job, but they also brought me into the active communities team with an absolutely brilliant line manager, who was Jane Ashworth, who some people may know went on to establish street games.
22:02
Jane Ashworth wow, I can't think of many more individuals who are more innovative, just inquisitive, curious, really prepared to kind of rip up the rulebook, but always for the right reason, you know, driven by what is it that the people were trying to help the people were trying to work with? What do they need most? What are they telling us? You know, she taught me a lot about really understanding the challenges that people face, really getting under the skin of it, really listening and trying to understand. That's what she taught me more than anything else, and that was one of the biggest lessons that I got really early in my career, which I've held with me ever since. So you're back at.
Sue Anstiss Host22:48
Richmond, two head coach of the second team, as well as working for Sport England.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest22:54
What happened next and then the next curveball came along and that was 2001. I was watching Scotland England. The game was played at Richmond. England were out of this world, they were fantastic, and Scotland just not in it at all. You know, england won very, very convincingly.
23:21
And I remember being in the clubhouse afterwards talking to the physio at Richmond, a woman called Miriam Williams, and saying to Miriam oh, you know, I watched that and my heart was breaking. You just want to be out there, don't you? You just want to be out there trying to help. And Miriam said well, why aren't you? And I was like, oh, because two ACLs I'm broken. You know that ship has sailed a long time ago. And Miriam, who was also the Scotland physio as well as the Richmond physio, she went no, it's not, it's not. You know, your knee is fixed. You're not in the condition to play rugby, but that's in your gift. If you really feel as passionate about this as you are saying you want to right now, you can do something about this. You can get back on that pitch and that was the start of my rehab to come back to try and play rugby. That again just one of those moments where the right person said the right thing and really kind of encouraged me in a really positive way and in your first game back.
Sue Anstiss Host24:28
I believe you broke two fingers.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest24:33
And it was just such a ridiculous injury as well the way it happened, and genuinely so. So it happened in the game. I may have went oh it's OK, you've staved your finger. Let me just I'll just take it back together. There was no physio. It was one of those charity games. There was just no infrastructure around it. I'll just take it back together. So I played the rest of the match and then my mates said, yeah, we should just get you in the car and go and see Miriam, just to check it out. And, by all accounts, miriam looked at it. You know the knuckle was facing the wrong way and she was like right, you're going straight to hospital. And genuinely, the next thing I remember is waking up the following day because they'd operated on it that night and I guess that might have been the moment that you'd go. Well, that's it.
Sue Anstiss Host25:19
That's it, I've had enough, I've had enough.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest25:22
Who's the first person that's there when I wake up to Miriam and she's like this is just a week, this is a week hiccup. You know it's fixed now. It's fixed now. Did you enjoy playing? And of course, I'd absolutely loved it, absolutely loved it. And so you know, I just kept on.
25:40
I couldn't play rugby for a few weeks for my finger, but I could do all the conditioning work and that meant actually I was in really good condition to then go to the Scotland trial and in 2002, I find myself back in the Scotland team. And so I guess the story here is and I often find myself saying this I was really fortunate, there were some amazing people that created opportunities for me to take part in sport. I was really fortunate, I was in the right place at the right time. But when I had that first ACL rupture, I understood very, very clearly where the inequalities are, because suddenly I was on my own. And that injury back in 1994, you know it was 2002 until I was back in the Scotland team and I'd missed almost 50 international matches in that time.
26:32
And so, yeah, you know, I came back and I played 2002 to 2006, played in two World Cups, had some amazing experiences, but you know, I lost a lot of time playing the sport I absolutely adore and that's really hard to take, you know. And I focus on all the positive things because, to be honest, had I not had that injury, I do not imagine for one second I'd be working in the sports industry. But I also have experiences along the way, whether it be recovering from that injury, whether it be some of my experiences as a rugby coach and some of the inequalities there. But you know, I have finished my rugby career with a real keen sense of the difference and how that manifests itself and how impactful that can be to women and girls who, you know, like me, I imagine, just want to play the sport they love, right.
Sue Anstiss Host27:36
Yeah, absolutely, and that clearly led then into the work that you did at Sport England. You were director of sport there for a number of years, but how did that then lead into your creating the insight directorate?
Lisa O’Keefe Guest27:48
Yeah, yeah. So when I first came into that job as director of sport, one of your big tasks is figuring out what funding you give to each of the governing bodies, and of course, it's a hugely, hugely important role. It's also a very visible role and you're everybody's mate whilst you're making the decisions on funding. Of course, you get a lot of invites to a lot of events, but when I came into the role, I staggered, actually at the lack of data that I was being presented with, and I say that because my background in finance, you know. Any decisions we made were absolutely based on what the market intelligence was telling us about the performance of the company. We're telling us about the market, everything we knew about our customers or competition, and there wasn't the same level of data and written down analysis of performance in the way that I sort of expected. If I'm honest, I actually spent six years as director of sport at Sport England, so I did two funding cycles with governing bodies. I mean, I hope people would say we ran a much tighter ship by the time I left that role because you know, I did make sure that we absolutely tied performance to evaluation. We had the active people survey back then and you know, that's the first time that the governing bodies and others became accountable for driving participation, with an independent evaluation of what those participation numbers were. The contracts were really clear on what we were trying to deliver and, yeah, I mean I felt like I'd done probably the most I could in terms of helping Sport England move from being a grant giver to being an investor. I had a really keen sense of this is public money and wanted to make sure that we were absolutely investing in the right places for very clear outcomes and then holding people to account for that 2008,. I'd done two investment cycles and I thought that was it for me. I thought that was the point. I was absolutely going to be leaving Sport England.
30:10
And I had a conversation with the then Chief Exec, jenny Price, and I said to Jenny you know, I mean I love this job but I don't think I can do another four years and I really don't want to do another funding cycle. And she said to me absolutely, except what you're saying, I'm really interested in your reflections on your time in this role and what you wished had been different. And I said to her what I just I wish. I wish that we as an organisation could much better capture the knowledge which undoubtedly sits throughout the business. I mean, honestly, sue, you know you could walk the floor of Sport England and talk about expertise and genuine. You're absolutely right. So, before you think you're going off anywhere, could you just look into that for me? Can you just have a little of a wee look at it and come back with some thoughts? And so I did, and I was given the scope to just go off and just investigate how others are doing it. And I looked at what was happening in the private sector. I looked at utility companies, I looked at the National Trust, you know, and everybody was so welcoming. They just opened their doors and they said, well, this is how we do it. And the upshot of all of that was I came back to Jenny and I said what we need at Sport England is an insight directorate, but a restructuring thinking different. You know, we need to put this at the heart of the business. This will be a game changer. And she was like you're absolutely right, you should think about doing that. And the rest is history, because that was back in 2013.
31:51
And I did nine years nine years as director of Insight at Sport England and I put some really basic principles at the heart of that.
32:04
I mean. The first one was I just felt really strongly that, as an investor, we should put insight at the heart of our decision making. And that didn't mean insight as in the insight team, it meant knowledge that was throughout the business. We needed to make that really easy for people to be able to access that knowledge in a really usable way to make better business decisions. And I also felt really strongly that this should be done in a way that was accessible to as many people as possible. So I remember having conversations with colleagues who said, well, this could be, you could make, you know, we could put this behind a paywall. We saw you know, this could income generate, etc. And I was like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have to do this in a way that everybody can access it, 100%. Everyone can access it, because we're trying to change the way we all operate and if we do it that way, we've also got a better chance of people then wanting to share back with us their knowledge and their insights and we all win.
Sue Anstiss Host33:08
And I bet your parents are happy because last you got this job that was more than nine months certainly.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest33:16
Well, yeah, that became the next joke, didn't it? Because everyone was like, are you ever going to leave sport England? And I was like, well, why would I? Because I've got the best job in the world and that exact director of insight. I mean really, wow, what you know? That was my absolute dream job. Dream job working with fantastic people, really fantastic team.
Sue Anstiss Host33:40
So while you're in that role, obviously January 2015, this girl can launched and we've not really talked much about this remarkable campaign on the podcast. But I am interested to hear from you why you think it has such an impact and that development of the original campaign.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest33:57
Yeah, I mean, this is yet another story of right place, right time. So we'd set up the insight directorate sport England and I was really clear that, whatever we did first as an insight director, we had to go and we had to work on some topics where the people would be interested in, where we knew there was absolutely you know, as I would call it a customer within the business that would would take that insight and do something really interesting with it and make some change happen so that I could demonstrate the value in working in this way. And the very sort of second piece of work that we were asked to do was Jenny Price came to see me and she said, lisa, I've got a ministerial advisory group coming up and they'd like to talk about everything we understand about why women and girls are less active than boys and men. And I was like, right, okay, sure, sure, we can do that. And Jenny walks away, I turn to the team and we're all looking at each other going how do we do that? So I mean we literally started with source every document we have got that tells us something about women and why women and girls are less active. And we, I mean we pulled stacks and stacks and stacks of information together, but actually what, what we were able to do and also with our colleagues at FCB Inferno, who we worked with on this girl can was always distill that down to some very, very clear insights. And that's why this girl can, for me, was so successful, because it was absolutely driven by the insight. We shared that openly and then that allowed other people to come in with their interpretation of that and share their version of it, which allowed us to keep on refining the thinking.
35:54
You know, one thing I have learned, Sue, is when you're working on a campaign like that, it's really easy to kind of get yourself a bit excited about, creatively, what you might do and like that's infectious and and you can kind of get carried away with what everybody in the room thinks would be a brilliant idea.
36:17
But that's why I was there right, because I was the one that was often the fun sponge that went. I'm loving this too, but actually we have to keep on looking back to what our audience is telling us, and because we were so clear on who we were trying to make this campaign talk to and whose behavior we wanted to change and in what way we were able to keep on staying focused to that and and the other big advantage for me was I was then able to tell that story and share those insights and demonstrate we saw this. As a result, we took this action and, as a result, this is what action our target audience took and, as you know, if you're, if you're an insight director and you're able to share that story and that level of detail, it becomes a lot easier than to encourage others as to why it's important to properly evaluate, collect data, do your research, draw your insights and use that to drive better decisions.
Sue Anstiss Host37:12
Obviously, it did have an incredible impact and I think reporters at 1.6 million women started exercising as a result. 2.8 million women were more active as a result of the campaign. So were you surprised by that success? Or, having done the insight and known who you're talking to and the way in which the campaign was then put together, did you anticipate it would be that successful?
Lisa O’Keefe Guest37:33
I didn't know because we'd never tried anything like that. You know, at Sport England we were used to evaluations of swimming pools or community projects. You know, we just didn't know. But we worked really hard to put in place a really strong evaluation that would tell us not only how people were behaving, how women and girls were behaving, but how they were feeling as a result of the campaign. Because we know that we're driven by emotions and that's what we were trying to do. We were trying to really help women feel differently about being active and their ability to be active, and I guess it's of course the numbers blew us away, but actually seeing the change in attitudes is the thing which I think I'm most proud of, because, you know, once you feel able to be active and you feel able to take part in different activities, we all know you know we do stuff and then we stop for a few weeks. You know we come in, we come out various points in our life, but what's most important is that we feel able to do it.
Sue Anstiss Host38:48
Absolutely. This can obviously set out to tackle that gender gap, that gender activity gap. So I just want to where it was and where it is now. And then, clearly you've moved on to your role now with IWG, the work that then you're doing in terms of that insight, but on a more global scale too.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest39:06
Thank you. So this girl can, as you've already said, sue, did have a significant impact on the behaviour of women and girls, as did an awful lot of our partners were coming on board delivering really interesting programmes in order to activate the campaign. So it's that combination of a campaign plus activity on the ground is absolutely critical. A campaign on its own one can't do it, and we had three or four years where we really were starting to see that gender gap close and we were getting used to every six months announcing active live results where the gains were being driven by women and girls, and it was fantastic. And then the pandemic arrived and overnight, of course, everything shut down and although we were still able to exercise, of course, and there were some opportunities to be active, we were noticing in all of the data that women's rates of activity were hardest hit, and the same was true amongst girls, and that attitudes towards being active and feeling able to were much more impacted amongst women and girls, and it was heartbreaking. So it was heartbreaking and I just looked at all those hard fought gains disappearing and what was really, really worrying me looking at the data, is that everything was telling me, looking at attitudes, that when activity opened up again, women would not come back in the same number. I could see it. Every indicator was telling me that women were not going to come back in the same number and that we were going to have a big, big issue.
41:01
I was contacted by Lisa Wainwright at the Sport and Recreation Alliance and she'd been talking to Dr Anita White Now. Dr Anita White was director of sport at Sport England when I first joined and was a real champion of gender equality. Anita also was the founder of women in sport and she was the founder of IWG women in sport, and she had suggested to Lisa that perhaps the UK might want to bid to be hosts of IWG. And Lisa said to me I'm just trying to get a few people together to see if there's any mileage in this. And as Lisa spoke to me about it and I was feeling so upset about what was happening to women and girls activity levels, I thought, well, this actually could be a really good mechanism for bringing lots of organisations together to give us real focus and reason to focus on women and girls as we come out of the pandemic. I mean, we were in the first lockdown then, so I was hoping we were coming out of that first lockdown and all would be fine. But that was the motivation and great job from Lisa Wainwright, because she brought so many people together and was the real catalyst for making that happen. And big thank you to Sport England and UK sport, who were the real drivers as well in terms of pulling the bid together and successfully putting it together.
42:35
And I said to you earlier, why would I ever want to leave Sport England in my dream job? Well, it's hard to not get excited by the potential of IWG women in sport, the world's biggest network devoted to gender equality. An opportunity to work globally, to draw together all of the knowledge that we have, the insights that we have, and to do exactly as I did at Sport England make that as accessible as possible to decision makers anywhere around the globe, because an awful lot of the small changes that we can make to the sports system to make it work better for women and girls those lessons have been learnt. They don't need to be learnt over and over and over again, and so that's one of my big jobs at IWG women in sport is to help people access that knowledge and to really put life into this global network so that people who are making breakthroughs are able to share that and help others advance gender equality.
Sue Anstiss Host43:45
Obviously, you're now no longer playing rugby, but you are still incredibly active, especially outdoors, in terms of cycling and hiking, so I'm interested to know what brings you so much joy. And I also wanted to ask you I only learned about bagging Munroes when I spoke to you about it, so you know what's the Munro and how do you bag it.
Lisa O’Keefe Guest44:06
Well, first of all, munro is a mountain in Scotland which is over 3000 feet or 912 metres. There's 282 of them, sue, and they're quite addictive. I don't get into outdoors. So there's a couple points I think. The first one is I learned at 23 that you can have a very serious injury or something you know. It can be a moment in your life where overnight, everything changes, and I learned from being on top of the world, thinking I could do anything, to being on crotchies, not sure what I could do anymore, and that is something I will never forget, so I guess forever. Now, for as long as I can, I will just want to keep on playing. That's how I describe it. I take deep joy out of being outside somewhere, either on my own or with a group of friends, just playing, just being active, just being outdoors, just moving, because that was taken away from me and now that I've got it back I am doing everything to hold on to it right. So that's the first point.
45:20
The outdoors is quite interesting because when I retired from rugby I had done 13 years between my first and final cap for Scotland. I retired after the 2006 World Cup and I guess I sort of felt a bit broken because I was. I was just broken, you know, end of a World Cup cycle, and it probably took me about 12 months after that to do anything to get active again. And, quite by accident, I'd gone up to Fort William on that day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, there was not a cloud in the sky and I looked up at Ben Nevis and I was like that's amazing, that looks amazing. And I thought, if it's like this tomorrow, I'm going up there right. And of course I opened the window the following day blue sky, sunshine.
46:16
So I ran down the road to Ellis Brigham, bought a pair of boots, bought a rucksack, bits of kit, I'd done my Duke of Edinburgh, so I knew how to read a map, you know all that good stuff. And I went up, ben Nevis and I just it was one of those moments I thought this is amazing again. It just filled my heart with joy. And I came down from there and I was going back to Edinburgh the following day and I thought, oh, I wonder if I could do another one on the way home. So I did Ben Lomond, I did Ben Lomond on the way home and that was the start. Yeah, 13 years, another 13 years. So 13 years playing for Scotland, 13 years in pursuit of the Monroe's. I finished my final Monroe and actually I climbed my final Monroe with my two of my former Scotland teammates, who took the trouble of carrying a chair up to the top so I could sit on my final Monroe and just look at the expanse of Scotland in front of me, which is exactly what I did.
Sue Anstiss Host47:24
Thank you so much, aliza, for joining me as a guest. She's always been a fantastic supporter of the work we do with the game changers and the women's sport collective, so it was lovely to have a chance to talk to her about her own career in sport. If you enjoyed the podcast, there are over 170 episodes featuring conversations with women's sport trailblazers that are free to listen to on podcast platforms or you can find them on our website at fearlesswomencouk. Other incredible Scottish guests I've spoken to on the podcast include Judy Murray, rose Riley Catherine Granger, shelly Kerr, ailish McCorgan and Eve Muirhead.
48:05
The whole of my book Game on the Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport is also free to listen to on the podcast. Every episode of series 13 is me reading a chapter of the book. The website is also the place where you can find out more about the women's sport collective, our free, inclusive community for all women working in sport. We now have over 6,500 members from 89 countries who meet online and in person at events and benefit from a very engaged LinkedIn group, regular newsletters, regional hubs and opportunities to attend industry events. Thanks again to Sport England for backing the game changes through a national lottery award, and to Sam Walker at what Goes On Media, who does such a great job as our executive producer. Thank you also to my brilliant colleague at Fearless Women, kate Hannon.