Glasgow hosted something cricket keeps failing at: building leadership pipelines for women.
Seven European nations sent their female administrators to Scotland for three days. Not a conference. Not another seminar.
Cricket Scotland and ICC Europe structured the ICC Female Leadership Summit around Transferable Skills and Knowledge. Female leaders in cricket don’t see how their playing experience translates to boardroom power.
Structure Over Speeches
They threw out the typical playbook.
Day one started with cricket. A Wee Bash at Hutchesons Grammar School before any PowerPoints. Day two celebrated Women in Scottish Cricket at Clydesdale Cricket Club. Day three brought workshops from ICC Europe.
The design matters because 82% of women believe networking with female leaders will advance their careers. You can’t build those connections in lecture halls.
Scottish Minister Maree Todd MSP showed up to talk about adaptability and resilience. The summit ran during Scottish Women and Girls in Sport Week, which tells you Cricket Scotland understands optics matter.
The Gap
Female leaders are still in the minority within cricket across Europe.
Playing opportunities have expanded. Leadership pipelines haven’t.
Delegates from seven nations—Scotland, England, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Jersey, and Finland—built connections their own organizations can’t provide. When you’re the only woman in the room back home, you need peers elsewhere.
The summit created that network.
Skills That Transfer
91% of women in leadership roles believe the skills they developed through sports were crucial to their professional success.
Cricket administrators with playing backgrounds have strategic thinking, team management, and performance analysis built in. They just don’t know how to sell it.
The workshops focused on translating athletic experience into language boards respect. Not dumbing it down. Reframing it.
What Now
Delegates went home with phone numbers and shared challenges. The kind of relationships that lead to late-night calls when you’re the only woman dealing with a difficult board decision.
Cricket Scotland and ICC Europe created infrastructure for change, not just an event.
Other regions should be watching. The model works if you’re willing to prioritize connection over content and invest in relationships that compound over time.