Hockey's Transformers: Inez Cooper

HOCKEY’S TRANSFORMERS: INEZ COOPER

We spoke to Vice President of the European Hockey Federation and business executive, Inez Cooper about leading change, transforming the game, the power of good governance and nurturing the next generation of female leaders in sport.

You’ve built a successful career in executive business and financial services. What does that involve and how does it play into the work you do for hockey?

I’m currently the Managing Director for a new Fintech payments start-up in Ireland and typically I’ve worked with businesses to move them forward or rescue them. So fundamentally, I am in the business of transformation and leading change within complex organisations. I’ve been able to use these skills and experience within hockey, whether that’s dealing with a board or taking multiple hockey stakeholders on a journey to effect change that helps to grow the game. In hockey, as in any business, you need to sell the vision of what you are trying to achieve and you can only win if the team you’re working with pulls together in the same direction.

I played hockey at school and club level. I love the game and everything around it – the set-up, the people. You just can’t beat a team sport – sharing the successes and the defeats - and it’s the same ethic that pulls me into the work I do professionally. It was through a contact I made on a hockey tour in the Netherlands that I got my first financial services role in London and it was hockey that gave me a family there. I was also involved in the running of my club straight out of school and this provided me with a solid grounding in good governance and how to run a business. So hockey gave me something professionally and personally which I wanted to repay in some way.

I moved back to Ireland after 12 years away where hockey, again, acted as a great connector for me. It was at this point that I realised I could use my strategy background to take the game forward in Ireland which at that time, didn’t have a National League. I wrote a paper outlining how to set one up and how it would work and sent it to Hockey Ireland. A year later they invited me to join a Working Group to deliver a National League.

You chaired the Irish Hockey League Working Group for 11 years. How did you make the National League happen and how did it transform the game there?

We had to take people on a journey and this meant starting smaller than our ultimate vision. So we began by creating a Hockey League that could fit around the existing hockey season with the Finals weekend at the end and it was an immediate success. From there, we took it to a full national league. It wasn’t without resistance and, as the lead and only woman involved, I had a challenge on my hands. But the players were a huge part of its success. Their emails of support and encouragement kept me going as did my experience of leading change in the business world. It is never comfortable.

For the full national league to become a reality it had to go to a vote at the Hockey Ireland AGM (General Assembly) in 2015 and be passed by a majority of at least 75%. We got 76% of the vote and that marginal victory became a gamechanger. Everything took off from there. EY came on board as sponsor, we went on to create a Division II and we saw Ireland move up the rankings at a national level in both the men’s and women’s games. Our clubs also moved up the European rankings. That was the absolute acid test of the League and it delivered.

What is your role on the European Hockey Federation (EHF) Board and what does that entail?

When I was elected to the EHF Board in 2013, I felt very much an outsider as I had no previous experience of any aspect of European hockey. Most of the other EHF board members had strong connections with European hockey built up over time whether as officials, umpires or retired elite players. While I may not have had the same foundations, joining a well-structured board that values difference and diversity as the EHF does, I was supported from the outset to contribute, utilising my particular strengths and experience.

On the EHF Board, everyone has an area that they oversee and I was given education of coaches, umpires and officials. The role has taught me so much and, at the same time I have been able to apply my experience of business readiness and preparing for transformation to the education structures and programmes we have built and continue to enhance every year.

In my view, every skill and discipline is well covered by at least three people on the recently elected Board, and I’m very excited to be stepping up to Vice President where I hope I can continue to contribute across other areas of expertise, like commercial.

Big Stadium Hockey - The Stoop, Twickenham

What has been your biggest achievement there?

After a while in the EHF role I realised we had an incredible unsung story to tell. Each year, we’d educate over 100 people across more than 27 nationalities using only volunteers and on a shoestring budget. I set about making sure we told this story, promoted the successes and advertised the programs to the National Associations. We then managed to secure funds from the EU Erasmus scheme which has allowed us to substantially grow our education programmes both in terms of quality and quantity. What we’re able to deliver now is very professional, and the difference when looking back over the last 7 years is incredible.

You played a fundamental role in the Irish women’s historic qualification for Tokyo 2020. What role did Big Stadium Hockey play in that?

By taking over the Leinster Rugby stadium we were able to pull in the biggest crowd experienced by a women’s international sporting team event in Ireland. The buzz and the excitement created by over 12,000 fans across the weekend was incredible.

Initially there was concern that Ireland would lose the home advantage by playing on an unfamiliar pitch, but the portable surface that England Hockey and Polytan had perfected a few months earlier, played brilliantly. The crowd it enabled gave Ireland the equivalent advantage of a 12th player. Both games were televised on free-to-air national TV which brought huge visibility and gave us a platform we hadn’t experienced before. It has been massive for the game and played a significant role in the women’s qualification. Ireland went on to play in Tokyo beating South Africa in the pool stages and putting in solid performances against GB and India who went on to battle it out for the Bronze medal. We didn’t get as far as we’d hoped to in the competition but we had a women’s team in the Olympics for the first time in history. People talk about hockey in Ireland now. This wasn’t happening two years ago.

As well as advancing the women’s game on the pitch, you are a mentor for women to achieve roles in the leadership and administrative side of sport. Tell us more.

I am involved with a programme called SWinG which stands for Supporting Women IN achieving their Goals and is an EU Erasmus funded project. It is a multi-party, multi-nation initiative helping to develop sports leadership in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen. The EHF partnership involvement has been led from the outset by Marijke Fleuren (EHF President) and Tom Pedersen-Smith (EHF Head of Development) and this involvement falls under our own wider #EquallyAmazing leadership program. Through it I am currently mentoring a Hungarian kayaker who is aiming for a place on the board of her International Federation and she currently works for her sport body in Hungary. I’ve been involved since the launch of the programme nearly two years ago and have met some really inspiring leaders in my fellow mentors. I am very positive that the initiative will help to realise the potential of many young female sports leaders with ambition to be involved in sport governance at a board level. Irish hockey player Lisa Jacob who made it onto the Irish Hockey Board and is also the manager of the Irish national team is one of the programme’s early success stories.

The EHF is already seeing gender equality progress from our #EquallyAmazing programme. There are now two women on the Polish Hockey Board, the German Board is 50:50 gender balanced, the Euro Hockey League (EHL) has now been extended to women and with equal payment prize money on offer. There are many such positive steps, with each one contributing to moving the dial on gender equality.

Is gender equality in sport governance improving and what still needs to be done?

There is always more to do but it is improving and I’ll give an Irish example. There’s a programme that has been run by the Sports Federation there until very recently called 20x20. Its goal was to achieve 20% more media attention for women’s sport, 20% more spectators at women’s games, 20% more female participation and 20% more women into sport leadership roles and it ran across all sports. What was really amazing is that it crossed sporting boundaries, we all started working together using a shared network and driving towards a common goal. It attacked sport at all levels and governance was key. If you switch on the TV you’ll see female commentators and that visibility is reflected in our governance structures as well. We now have a situation where in order to achieve government funding as a sport you need to be able to demonstrate gender equality. It has transformed sport in Ireland and hockey is one of the top players on this front.

Laura Hoyle7 March 2022