Women Leaders Podcast

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares a timely and enlightening conversation with Dr. Nicki Webber Moore, the Vice President and Director of Athletics at Division I Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Nicki has a unique and powerful lens as an AD. With a doctorate in sport psychology, she is acutely aware of the importance of mental wellness as an essential part of overall health for both student-athletes and her staff. Nicki, a national leader in matters impacting the student-athlete experience, talks about her leadership style and how she upholds the particular needs of student-athletes and promotes the professional growth of her coaches. Nicki also shares how her career in athletics administration bloomed early—as a student-athlete who jumped into campaigning and fundraising for a new facility. Since that time, she has carried with her and benefitted from two major lessons: no relationship is disposable, and it pays to say yes to new professional opportunities that increase your value. Nicki is an

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares a striking conversation with Sarah Dehring, the Athletics Director at Division III Alma College in central Michigan. Sarah has a fascinating story about growing up on Mackinac Island near Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This beautiful, tiny island has only 500 year-round residents, requires a ferry or plane ride to the mainland, and has no cars. Sarah’s graduating high school class had only eight students! Clearly, her path to becoming a college athlete, coach, and AD is unique! You’ll hear how her island upbringing has deeply influenced her choices and leadership style. On multiple occasions, unexpected circumstances propelled Sarah in new directions and helped shape her career. In turn, she learned to take advantage of opportunities and make sacrifices to get where she wanted to go. She also shares how genuinely and transparently connecting with and relating to others became her leadership superpowers—whether through mentoring her staff or shoveling snow off the bleachers

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares an inspiring conversation with the new Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Denver Broncos, Dr. China Jude. China is the perfect example of writing one’s own story. I wasn’t aware that China didn’t work in college athletics until her 30s—she started with stints in broadcast journalism, community-focused nonprofits, and the Naval reserves. But Her penchant for learning and growth, plus her ability to adjust as needed, allowed her to pivot on her terms when opportunity knocked—including to Division I and II coaching and athletic director positions and, most recently, to the Denver Broncos. A Chicago native who played volleyball in college, China says she was always incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives into her roles long before DEI had a title in the workplace. and she did it even when others suggested she not discuss these issues, that it was too aggressive, and the conversations were too uncomfortable. But, with her goal to b

In this podcast, Patti Phillips share an engaging conversation with the director of athletics at Gannon University, Lisa Goddard McGuirk. Lisa’s experience highlights the power of a growth mindset on a career path—including a not-quite linear one. She is a firm believer in figuring things out, and says there is always a solution to everything. Raised on a farm, where helping with chores was imperative—and in a family and community that wholeheartedly supported her love of sports—Lisa learned about being resourceful and believing in herself. That drive has sustained her through an inspiring career spanning coaching, teaching, and being an athletic director at three institutions, with stints in all three NCAA divisions. Lisa humbly shares how she vaulted from coaching to the athletic director's chair—despite never having previously held a position in administration. She emphasizes the importance of transferable skills, a willingness to see various perspectives, and a collaborative work style. She shares that

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares an inspiring conversation with the Director of Athletics at Mississippi Valley State University, Dianthia Ford-Kee.   Dianthia’s energy and zest for life is undeniable. Those qualities, she says, stem from humble beginnings. Growing up playing backyard basketball and softball games with family, she never imagined that her love of those sports would lead to being a dual-sport collegiate athlete, 6-time conference champion Head Coach,  AND a Director of Athletics. Her passion for helping others and mentoring young people is palpable, and truly inspiring.     The fact that a former colleague became a president and then came calling for her reminds us that we are always interviewing for the next job through our performance every day. And just as important, she never shied away from making a connection or taking the next opportunity when it came knocking.   In our conversation, Dianthia opens up about her experience working in all 3 NCAA Divisions, why she has chosen to only

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares an insightful conversation with the Commissioner of the Patriot League, Jennifer Heppel. Jen’s pathway to the Commissioner chair not only included extensive NCAA office and committee work, campus and conference office experience, but also what she calls “becoming an accidental student-athlete.” A long-time competitive figure skater turned collegiate ice hockey player, Jen translated her love for the sport and tireless discipline into a long career of leading and impacting the student-athlete experience. In our conversation, Jen opens up about her two stints working at the BIG Ten Conference Office – totaling 12 years, including why she left and why she agreed to go back, We also talk about her belief in why diversity of thought and experience is critical to effective team building and why it should be top of mind in hiring decisions while building your own staff and team culture. Plus, Jen shares best practices for using your voice at the national level, understanding

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares a great conversation with the Deputy Director of Athletics at Rutgers University and current Women Leaders Board Member, Sarah Baumgartner. Sarah’s impact at Rutgers has not only elevated the institution to competition at the highest level in the BIG10 Conference, but inspired women across the country to pursue a career in development. She is no stranger to bold leadership and has trailblazed record-breaking multi-million dollar fundraising efforts for capital projects at Rutgers in the last 4 years. There is no better advocate for working in external relations than Sarah, as she has her hands full with oversight of the majority of extrinsic touch points for athletics. Her philosophy on relationship building and developing skill sets are just some of the many reasons that she has succeeded in her role. But much of what has prepared her for her current role began when she was handed Men’s Basketball as her FIRST sport supervisory role at Mizzou Athletics, and she hasn’t

In today’s podcast, Patti Phillips shares a great conversation with the Senior Director of Athletics at Auburn University at Montgomery, Jessie Rosa. Jessie’s childhood dream was to be the athletics director at AUM and today, she is not only living that dream - but also inspiring the next generation to follow their own dreams. Like many, her journey to the chair did not come without hearing a few “no’s” first and engaging in some crucial conversations with herself and others. A former dual-sport student-athlete at AUM, Jessie was dismissed from the basketball team during her freshman year. Despite this often being a taboo topic in athletics, she shares openly about how that experience transformed her philosophy about providing others second chances and why, “it’s your responsibility as the leader to set the tone.” In our conversation, Jessie opens up about how she used her institutional knowledge as a selling factor in securing her full-time role as AD and how the process of removing the “Interim” tag from

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares a great conversation with the Director of Athletics at Knox College, Daniella Irle.  Her highly decorated 20-year head coaching career in Division I Swimming and Diving, paired with a masterful 15-year administrative career, has made Daniella a force in this industry and beyond. She is no stranger to defying the odds and when we say resilience changes lives, there is no better example of this than her.  Leaning into self-awareness and committing to personal growth has been the story of Daniella’s advancement and prompted a critical pivot in her career to working in Division III athletics - a decision she’s made and never looked back. In our conversation, Daniella opens up about her experience working in athletics during the wake of Hurricane Katrina and how it became the catalyst for her transition from coaching to administration. The skills that she had already spent so many years refining in her coaching career, she says, were immediately transferable and “translate at

In this podcast, Patti Phillips shares the highly anticipated conversation with the commissioner of the WNBA, Cathy Engelbert. Cathy is an innovative and people-first leader who has made an immediate impact on the WNBA in her first 18-months as Commissioner. Cathy is no stranger to leading through crisis and navigating challenges -as she spent 33 years at Deloitte, including 4 years as CEO. During this conversation, Cathy shares how important it is to do small things of symbolic value to build trust as a new leader. In fact, it was the trust that Cathy intentionally built from day one as Commissioner that allowed her to quickly and successfully negotiate a groundbreaking Collective Bargaining Agreement; and then execute an entire WNBA season in the “wubble”. Cathy dives into the wubble life, and also talk about how WNBA plyers used their platform to drive social justice issues during a time when our country was plagued by racial unrest. And of course, we can’t talk to Cathy without discussing the orange hoodi

Welcome to the 100TH EPISODE of the Women Leaders Podcast!  Since 2017, powerhouse women from all corners of the collegiate athletics industry and beyond have shared their career and leadership journey with us on the Women Leaders Podcast. With over 122,000 all-time downloads in just four years and an average of 4,000 downloads per month, these conversations have provided timely and impactful insights to our listeners by covering relevant and relatable topics for women leaders at all levels - (like being THE FIRST or THE ONLY, managing up, navigating transitions, being a mom in athletics, building and sustaining organizational culture, and so much more). Today, for our 100th podcast episode we are talking with the 2021 Women Leaders Executive Committee: Sandy Barbour, Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics at the Pennsylvania State University, Heather Lyke, Director of Athletics at the University of Pittsburgh and Jacqie McWilliams, Commissioner of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA)

In this podcast, Patti Phillips is joined by Valerie Cleary, director of athletics at Portland State University Val has somewhat of an underdog story that reminds young women that a career in sports is possible! A small, farm town girl from Northern California who never aspired to be an athletic director - Val used her undergrad experiences as a tour guide, orientation leader and sorority sister to find her passion for higher education, which led to a Masters in Counseling and Student Development, a degree she uses every single day. While Val has spent many years in higher education, she was only in athletics for 1 year before being asked to serve as the interim AD, which says a lot about her skillset and leadership abilities. She has since been hired into two different athletic director roles and is thriving. Find out she created her own “search firm” for hiring new coaches, developed her philosophy around what “fit” for a department really means, and how she makes sure everyone working under her has a vo

In this podcast, Patti Phillips is joined by CEO and Founder of Brave Enterprises, a great friend of Women Leaders and former convention keynote, Crista Samaras Crista is a coach, entrepreneur, and power-packed, energetic pep talk master who has coached thousands of people to feel great about themselves and to accomplish things they never thought possible, And while her energy is infectious and not to be forgotten,, she is a brilliant teacher, practitioner, and believer in research and stats. There is endless substance behind her inspiring message., that will make you feel ready to CRUSH IT. Crista’s career journey is one of discovery, bold passion and relentless curiosity about this thing called life. She grew up in a family of 6 fellow lacrosse athletes who all competed at the collegiate level, and she talks openly about how her struggles as a Princeton student-athlete taught her the true definition of grit and why it is important to “know your controllables.” Both of these learnings now serve as core co

In this podcast, Patti Philips is joined by Director of Athletics at Montana State University-Billings, Krista Montague. The first female athletic director at MSU-Billings AND at a NCAA institution in the state of Montana, Krista has spent her entire career in athletics supporting and pouring her heart into the community that helped to shape her. We talk about how the journey from staff, to interim AD, to Athletic Director has contributed to her now 22-year career at MSU-Billings. I love this story about Krista’s early introduction to sports – which came when she was able to shadow her grandfather, who chose to coach girls basketball at a time when girls and women were just beginning to have the opportunity to play. Her time at practices, on the bench, and on the bus really shaped her love of the sport, and she went on to earn a scholarship to play at MSU-Billings – and by the way, her daughter plays there now as well! In our conversation, Krista shares her thoughts about how women feel pressured to choose

In this podcast, Patti Phillips is joined by Assistant Vice President and Director of Athletics at Saint Francis Brooklyn College, Irma Garcia. With a breadth of knowledge in many areas across this industry, her heart for using them all to better the lives of others is what makes Irma a true Woman Leader! Starting as the Head Women’s Basketball Coach and now the Athletic Director, she has used every moment of her 32-year career at her alma mater to uplift and inspire. The first Hispanic female to step into the Athletic Director chair at the NCAA Division I level, she says the resiliency of her Brooklyn roots inspired her to pursue her passion for playing basketball and use her voice to better the college athletics industry. Irma’s philosophy on molding student-athletes into impactful world citizens has guided her through stops at every level of coaching and administration. Teaching has always been her first love, but she believes a good teacher always becomes the student. That mindset, she says, has helped

Hello, and welcome to the Women Leaders podcast! I’m Patti Phillips, CEO of Women Leaders in College Sports. Today, I am excited to be joined by current Women Leaders Board member and the Executive Director of the Centennial Conference, Portia Hoeg. Portia has a broad experience in the world of collegiate athletics, that includes an all-star student-athlete experience, an internship at the WBCA, administration stops at 5 different colleges, almost 8 years in the AD chair, and now a year and a half as a commissioner. And throughout every step of her career, she has been a steadfast advocate for collegiate athletics at the NCAA Division III level. In our conversation, Portia talks about discerning great opportunities, the current realities of the ethnic minority population in Division III, using her voice during the health and racial pandemics that our nation faces, and what it has meant to her to be the first African American woman to ascend to the Commissioner role at the DIII level in any conference. Port

In this podcast, Patti Phillips is joined by the Director of Athletics at Palm Beach Atlantic University, Courtney Lovely Evans. Courtney has ascended to the AD chair quickly, although this was not necessarily her goal in college. It was actually the opportunity to work for two female leaders at Georgia State that opened her eyes to collegiate administration. In our conversation Courtney talks about the 3 types of decisions we are all faced with, her ideas on hiring to weaknesses, having a fearless approach to “friendraising,” and the value of a personal board of directors, especially while making choices in transition. She shares about how her stops at Georgia State University and the NCAA National Office fueled her passion for positively affecting the student-athlete experience, and credits those positions with forming her use of storytelling and relationship building to advocate for her student-athletes. Finally, Courtney also opens up about how “being the only” was part of her journey to becoming the

In this podcast, Patti Phillips is joined by a true trailblazer, Dr. Candice Storey Lee, the Vice Chancellor for Athletics & University Affairs and Athletics Director at Vanderbilt University. Candice’s’ appointment is historic as Vanderbilt’s first female athletic director AND the first African American woman to lead an athletics program in the SEC. We talk and how she has handled that, AND the COVID and racial pandemics that hit our country shortly after she started her role. In fact, We dive into the experience of “racial battle fatigue” and how campus culture shapes student-athlete experiences today! Her values of service and duty have allowed her to flourish through many periods of transition. Growing up in a military family, Candice attended 14 schools before beginning her now 25 year career at Vanderbilt; a career that includes two additional higher ed degrees and various leadership roles within the athletic department that she now leads. Candice had a successful college basketball career in th

In this podcast, Patti Phillips is joined by Mollie Marcoux Samaan, the Ford Family Director of Athletics at Princeton University. Mollie’s journey to the AD chair is a unique one, having never worked in college athletics prior to accepting the role at Princeton. We hear this a lot on the men’s side, but not as much with women. Mollie did start her career at a boarding school where she held many jobs, including coaching the girls ice hockey and soccer teams. But she soon landed an entry level job at Chelsea Piers and began a 19-year run there that saw her elevated into several different leadership roles, including Exec VP of Chelsea Piers Connecticut. Mollie said her experience there, which included work in events, fundraising, marketing and business operations to name a few, more than prepared her to lead at Princeton. And not so much because of the work she was doing, but because she was constantly challenged to learn new skills in new areas, which forced her to continue to cultivate a strong growth mind

In this podcast, Patti Phillips is joined by Michelle Morgan, Senior Director of Athletics and Recreation at John Carroll University. Michelle’s mission in life is to “make a mark on the world with a skate on one foot and a black pump on the other” and there is no doubt this mission is evidenced in her reality. Michelle grew up as an ice hockey student-athlete and used her love of the sport to propel her career. She was the first female awarded a scholarship from the Chicago Blackhawk association, at age 18, which presented further opportunities for her to work with both the NHL and NFL. But her transition to college athletics came unexpectedly, when she helped write a ‘Director of Marketing’ job description for her alma mater and decided to apply in the process. In our conversation, Michelle talks about the importance of developing a solid network and skills relevant to our industry; which for her, included participation in the 2016 Women Leaders Institute for Administrative Advancement. She also discusses