Women know the feeling of “crunch time,” whatever field they’re in. Two champion athletes who have faced that pressure have some advice for women: To succeed, look to your supporters, not your doubters.
Golfer Stacy Lewis, who boasts two major titles on the LPGA Tour, has made maternity leave reform for women athletes a personal mission. “Though many jobs in a corporate environment have a maternity leave policy, there is not much of that in professional sports,” says Lewis. “So [we’re] trying to change that, and have these different organizations, whether it be the WNBA or the LPGA, just be more supportive of us having families.
“It was so satisfying,” she says. “More than anything, I was proving it to myself. I wanted to prove to myself that I could have a baby, that my body could come back from all of that and still be competitive and still do it at the highest level. Lewis and Lawson were speakers at the seventh edition of the KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit, an annual event that brings together influential women in sports, politics, media and business with the goal of advancing more women into the C-suite. The summit, which was held virtually on June 23, provides hundreds of executive women with high-impact leadership content and breakout sessions, and access to executives who are inspiring greatness and paving a path for women to succeed.