Female Leadership Program

The Female Leadership program was born in 2019 off the back of Orygen Research, to provide support to emerging female leaders within Australian cricket.

Lead by former Australian captain Belinda Clark, the program is designed specifically to provide programs that are tailored towards those areas of leadership each person wants to focus on. The program commences each June, running through the Australian cricket season before concluding in March.

A player from each state and territory (seven in total) are offered the opportunity to focus on developing self-awareness, enriching their understanding of their leadership strengths and improving their confidence and capability to lead in their desired area.

The program includes group sessions, that have been held at the ACA office, as well as one-to-one sessions with Clark. All players are linked with a mentor in their state or territory for additional support.

Those who have completed the program consistently state that confidence, capability, and team contribution increased on average across all players who were involved in the program.

Since the inception of the program, there have been 33 players that have participated, and 27 of those have gone on to hold leadership roles as captains in domestic, franchise or international cricket or have become ACA Player Delegates.

Victorian player Sophie Reid described the opportunity to work with Belinda Clark as “pretty cool”,

“To meet some other like-minded athletes, to upskill, get better as an athlete, take those skills back to my state and try to implement them there to make the group better,”

“I think those skills will also make myself a better athlete and a better person.”

Tasmania’s Rachel Trenaman said she loved how Clark always brought new things to the table to get you to look at things in a different light.

“It was really challenging but was really important for overall growth leadership-wise,” she said.

Clark herself has enjoyed being at the helm of the program.

“I think the big wins have been being able to meet so many different people and have the players able to interact with each other and learn from each other,” she said.

“They’re all coming from very different environments, so to be able to cross-reference that and learn from each other along the way, it’s been really exciting.”

To find out more about the program, ACA members can contact their PDM. To find out more about Belinda and her work through The Leadership Playground, click here.