have a passion for sport.AM: Clearly.DL: And I've had a great career and thiswas three years ago, I took the opportunityto take over this position as CEO ofthe WSF because even though I neverwas an elite athlete myself, I know whatmy youth sport, participation taught me,and I don't think I ever would have been aC-Suite leader without it and the principlesthat come with sport and this is just anotherexample of why it's so important toinvest in girls and women playing sports.AM: It’s an incredible career and how ithas led you to this point!What is the WSF and how do they workwith athletes?DL: Sure. So the WSF, like I said was founded51 years ago by Billie Jean King. We liketo say we're not sure Billie Jean ever slept.Because when she founded us, she wasalso beginning to create the Women'sTennis Association, equal pay at the USOpen - she just was doing so many monumentalthings that now today for manyof us, none of us would have the careersthat we have without the work that Billiedid very early on. But the WSF is primarilyan advocacy research organization. Wereally were one of the first championsand leaders of the entire women's sportsecosystem. But we’ve really been able tomake the connection through data andresearch and our advocacy work andcommunity programming, which is an examplelike this grant program, we do withTylenol to prove the important and vitalrole that sports plays for girls and women- from a societal perspective, culturalperspective, and economic impact perspective.So we've seen this for decades, Ifeel very fortunate to take over the reignsthree years ago, but really we like to saysports is not a nice to have for girls women,it's a must-have.AM: Absolutely.DL: Because you know when girls playsports they lead and we all win and that’sreally what the WSF is all about.AM: As a CEO, what is your role? Whatare some of your day-to-day or month-tomonthfocuses that you have?DL: Well, as any CEO of a not-for-profit,most of my time is to make sure that wecan be funded to do our great work. Wehave been as part of our DNA, we don'tdo anything without research and data.So, one thing I've always really appreciatedabout this organization is it's alwaysled by research. So we have hundreds andhundreds of research projects that haveproven through the years of different areasof why sports matter, why they matterfrom an economic perspective, whythey're matter from a leadership perspective,why they matter from a health andwell-being perspective for girls and womenwhere that aren't access points forgirls and women, so overseeing obviouslyour organization and all of our core areas,so our advocacy team can do their advocacywork. Our research team can do theresearch as necessary, to prove the modeland then all of our great community programmingthat we do, which are essentiallyoutputs of that research and data,which an example is obviously this greatprogram we have with Tylenol.So we've been doing that for decades andas it relates to Elite athletes, I mean obviouslybeing founded by one of the probablymost iconic female athletes of our day,we do a lot with elite athletes even fromthe very beginning. One of the most importantthings for Billie was to make surethat Elite athletes serve on our board. Sowe had Elite female athletes since the dayof our existence serving as part of ourBoard of Trustees, which is why I'm theCEO and we always have an Elite athletepresident which currently is a Paralympianathlete named Scout Bassett. And wealways have that as a part of our DNA andpart of our structure, really important togive women at a very early parts, of theircareers opportunities to have board ser-
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