Sophie Goldschmidt is a person who knows what she’s doing. Image: WSL
Back in August of 2017, Sophie Goldschmidt officially took the reins of the WSL. For many, it seemed to be a bit of an odd appointment. “Goldschmidt don’t surf” the naysayers said. And it’s true—by her own admission, the new CEO of the World Surf League only has a cursory understanding of the actual act of surfing. When it comes to sports, however, Goldschmidt has a wealth of experience and a track record that’s pretty damn impressive. So impressive, in fact, that Forbes put her at number 15 on the list of The Most Powerful Women In International Sports 2018.
In all, the 25 women on the list range in age from 24 to 63 and hail from 19 countries on six continents. So how did Forbes come up with the list? Four metrics were considered: “Money (personal earnings or company revenue through sport), media presence, spheres of influence, and social impact on sport. Then, Forbes Asia contributing editor Joyce Huang, Sporting Intelligence proprietor Nick Harris, and women’s sports advocacy groups around the world were consulted to make the final ranking determination.”
Goldschmidt has spent the better part of her professional career in sports management, marketing, and communications, and she’s damn good at her job. On top of that, she had executive roles in the Rugby Football Union, Women’s Tennis Association, and the NBA. Yeah, that NBA. It wasn’t a small role there, either. “As the NBA continues to expand its global footprint, so too does the league’s increasing reliance on Sophie Goldschmidt to help drive its brand overseas,” wrote Sports Business Journal in their 2011 Top 40 Under 40. “Goldschmidt was named senior vice president for the NBA in Europe and the Middle East in February 2010 and she now manages league offices in Istanbul, Turkey; Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy; Paris; and London, where she is headquartered.”
The women included on Forbes‘ Most Powerful Women In International Sports list are indeed powerful women. It includes broadcasters like Barbara Slater, the BBC’s first female director of sports who almost single-handedly brought the BBC’s coverage of women’s sports to 30 percent, and inspirational stories like that of Afghan Nadia Nadim, whose father taught her to play soccer before he was executed. After Nadim and the rest of the family fled the country to Denmark, she became captain of the Denmark National Team. Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura, the first female secretary general of FIFA, is in charge of the world’s most popular sport and the World Cup. Florence Hardouin of France is the first woman to have been elected a member of the executive committee of UEFA, European soccer’s governing body. It is a list anyone would be proud to be a part of.
Whatever your feelings on Goldschmidt sitting in the highest throne in pro surfing, it cannot be denied that she is a person who, despite her lack of actual surfing talent, is well-equipped to do what she was brought on to do: make the sport of surfing as popular as possible.
