Professor Boris Groysberg presented a unique forum over two days using the Harvard Business School Case Method, an innovative teaching model designed to facilitate a dynamic learning experience exploring balanced and inclusive representation.

Paralympics Australia CEO, Catherine Clark said the workshop was the perfect blend of case studies offering practical, real-world examples, combined with Professor Groysberg’s deep knowledge of research, analytics and evidenced based trends.

Clark said that facilitating these conversations are critical to building a stronger Australian sporting system.

“The HP 2032+ Strategy brought people together to have real conversations and I think this is a muscle that we grew through that process.”

“We are going to be in a better place to have long lasting success in Australia when we build that muscle for having real conversations surfacing any of those issues and lived experiences and then working collaboratively around a solution that’s going to work across the sector.”

Clark said that parallels in research around gender inclusive leadership can also be drawn on and applied to disability inclusion.

“I’m looking at it through a new lens and how I can take the learnings out of today, and the stories that I have heard from my community about discrimination or where inclusive practices haven’t been their experience in sport, and I think I can translate this not only through the lens of gender but how we can make the journeys and careers of people with a disability a lot better in the world of sport in Australia,” said Clark.

CEO of Baseball Australia, Glen Williams said that occasions such as this where the sector comes together are invaluable.

“There’s so many learnings across sport and I think that the collaborative approach and building those networks and engaging in these conversations is only going to help the sector improve on this journey,” said Williams.

“We’re very fortunate to work in sports and hopefully we can have an impact on inclusive practices across society.”

Sandra Sully, Board Member of Hockey Australia and longtime Channel 10 news presenter said that while sport leads in many facets there is still a lot more work that needs to be done.

“Days like this are really important because people like Boris (Groysberg) actually do the homework, they do the research, demonstrate and can chart an industries success and pinpoint reasons why,” said Sully.

“You need data, metrics, you need to prove your point and you can’t do that unless you stand back and reflect on where you are and measure where you are against other industries and get a proper context and chart your evolution and progress.”

For more information about building the capacity and capability of safe and inclusive sport, visit the ASC website.