Starre, Kate, Brockett, Camilla ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4933-8056 and Hanlon, Clare ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5547-5327 (2025) FINAL REPORT (Part 1) Pre - JET NY Immersion Experience – Participant Expectations. Project Report. Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria. (Unpublished)

Abstract

Women remain under-represented in sport leadership despite decades of investment in programs designed to develop them. In Australia, the Sports Commission's Women Leadership in Sport program has engaged more than 27,000 participants since 2002, yet women hold only 22% of chief executive roles across the country's 65 national sporting organisations. This persistent gap suggests under-representation has been treated as a problem of women's skills rather than of the organisations they work in. The JET Group's Immersion Experience departs from this model, taking a cohort of four senior women in sport to New York for an intensive program of access to industry leaders, peer exchange and structured reflection. This study evaluated the inaugural Immersion Experience. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with all four participants before and shortly after the program, then analysed using Kirkpatrick's four-level evaluation model, which extends assessment beyond participant reaction and learning to workplace behaviour and organisational results. Participants reported unanimous satisfaction and substantial learning, describing gains in confidence, strategic thinking and professional networks. Applying those gains proved harder. Participants identified workload, risk-averse organisational cultures and entrenched power structures as barriers, and described their principal obstacle as a confidence gap rather than a skills gap, locating an organisational problem within themselves. Cultural differences further limited the transfer of US leadership norms to Australian workplaces. The findings indicate that individual development alone is unlikely to produce organisational change without employer accountability, and inform recommendations for strengthening evaluation and organisational engagement in future programs.

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