NZC Board Member named “Gender Advocacy Champion”

New Zealand Cricket Board member Liz Dawson has been named Governance NZ’s “Gender Advocacy Champion” at the Women-in-Governance Awards ceremony in Auckland.
 
Ms Dawson was recognised for her work in promoting better gender representation at governance level throughout the New Zealand cricket family, but particularly at National, Major Association, and District Association level.
 
As Project lead in NZC’s Women & Cricket (and the associated Women & Governance) initiative,
Ms Dawson’s responsibility was to assist in identifying the most significant problems in this relationship, and in developing priorities which would lead to fairer and more sustainable outcomes.
 
Since the findings of the Women & Cricket report were released in late 2016, NZC has boosted its proportion of female board members from 11% to 44%; MAs have grown the proportion of female board members from 4.55% to 26.7%, and DAs from 6.7% to 11.1%.
 
The progress at governance level has led to advances in other areas of the project: NZC now commits an extra $200,000 to MAs to assist with female engagement, and the position of a fulltime female participation manager has been created - filled by former Football Fern, Dr Michele Cox.
 
In turn, this has led to dramatically-improved fan engagement rates with females through WHITE FERNS-based social media platforms, and a 12% increase in the participation rates of women and girls over the past year.
 
NZC chief executive David White applauded the acknowledgement of Ms Dawson, saying there was no more appropriate award for her efforts than that of “Gender Advocacy Champion”.
 
“It’s wonderful that the on-going energy and plain hard work Liz has contributed in this area, not just in terms of NZC but in her wider brief including AFL, the NZOC and New Zealand Rugby, is being celebrated,” said Mr White.
 
“It’s well-deserved recognition.”
 
Ms Dawson also helps promote the NZOC’s Women in Sport Leadership Academy; is a strong proponent of female engagement and participation within the AFL, and more recently served on New Zealand Rugby’s Respect and Responsibility Review Panel.