The Business of Sport - Eva Pasquier and Jules McGeever

Eva Pasquier, Jules McGeever, and Stuart Larman co-founded EqualCareer with a mission to drive transformative change within organizations, addressing the critical issues of inequality, underrepresentation, and gender imbalance. Through tailor-made, hands-on workshops designed for women across various sectors, EqualCareer empowers women at every stage of their career journey. These workshops provide practical learning and development experiences, equipping participants with the tools not just to succeed but to excel in their workplaces. Simultaneously, EqualCareer assists organizations in fostering sustainable growth by promoting representation, diversity, and equity.

Despite comprising 47% of the global labour force, only a mere 2.06% of women reach leadership positions. Many organizations now discuss the importance of achieving a minimum 30% gender balance and representation, yet few possess a concrete strategy to attain this goal. EqualCareer steps in to provide those much-needed solutions.

Eva, Jules, and Stuart bring extensive backgrounds in the world of corporate and sport industries to EqualCareer, having previously delivered programs for women round the globe on behalf of UEFA where Eva worked as Head of International Relations. This provided them with a global perspective on the challenges faced by women and organizations in combatting gender inequality both on and off the field. Their experiences have equipped them with the insights and strategies required to ensure enduring organizational success through meaningful change.

Jules on the current state of women's football. "The recent World Cup was a pinnacle and showpiece. You just have to look at the stats for investment in the women's ga,e, it is undoubtedly growing, on and off the pitch. I think where Eva and I are really looking at that behind the scenes, things aren't quite as equal as they should be."

 Eva on equality: "There is only football and it's played by females and it's played by males. It is really important not to have a woman in a top position, just for the sake of having a woman there. It is really very important that we have qualified women there.

 Jules on the Spanish team: "The injustice of what happened is that at least it has opened up a conversation that needed to be had. While women's football is going in the right direction, things are not perfect behind the scenes and that is what we are trying to correct."

Eva on barriers to success: There are two main barriers that are stopping women from being where they should be, or where they would like to be. First of all is the internal bias that prevents women from going out to show what they can do. The second barrier is organisations themsleves, their HR systems, promotion systems, hiring systems. This is what we are addressing with our Equal Careers programme.

 Jules on bias: "Where there are problems, there are biases that stop women getting on. For us, what we have noticed all around the world, is that it is normally a culture problem within an organisation. Football is 27% female, but only 7% of females are in top roles."