Despite the undeniable surge in popularity and interest in women's sports, there remains a significant gap in corporate investment, advertising spend, and measurement representation in the category. This conversation aims to dissect the root causes of this disparity, have a deep discussion around gender bias, and foster meaningful dialogue around strategies for addressing the imbalance in resources allocated to women's sports compared to their male counterparts. We’ll hear a variety of perspectives across brands, agencies, publishers and athletes within the sports community.
Speakers:Â
Angela Ruggerio - 4x Olympian/Gold Medalist, Co-Founder Sports Innovation Lab
Maya Herm - Director Customer Success - EMEA, Relo Metrics, Founder Women's Football Collab
Sherry Pitkofsky - VP, Brand Strategy + Marketing, Scripps
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Moderator:
Jenny Wall - CMO, VideoAmp
Angela Ruggiero is Co-Founder & Chair of Sports Innovation Lab, a data company that enables brands and sports properties to build more effective sponsorships, improve targeted advertising, and enhance fan experiences.  A decorated Olympic champion distinguished as one of the greatest hockey players of all time, she has made a global impact in innovation and policy in sport through roles as a founder, investor, advisor, board member, and administrator for top organizations and governing bodies. She has been named to Sports Business Journal's 40 Under 40 List, Forbes’ Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Sport, and has been inducted into both the Hockey Hall of Fame and the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee Hall of Fame. Ruggiero has served the Olympic Movement on the administrative and board levels for over a decade. She is currently a member of the International Olympic Committee Technology and Technical Innovation Commission, and previously served on the Executive Board of the IOC. Currently, Ruggiero is a hockey operations advisor to the President and GM at the NY Rangers. Her athletic career was immortalized through her induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015, becoming just the fourth woman ever to be inducted. She played in 256 ice hockey games for Team USA - more than any other player, male or female - capturing four Olympic medals along the way (Gold in ‘98, Silver in ‘02 and ‘10, and Bronze in ‘06), twice being named Best Defenseman at the Games, while also winning four World Championships.
With experience across the sports industry, on and off the pitch, Maya leads strategy on growing Relo's impact in sponsorship measurement and media analysis for brands and sports properties along with powering business outcomes for Relo's client base. With a passion for women's sport and belief in its commercial viability, Maya has led the charge in Relo's involvement in the space by founding the Women's Football Collab, a programme granting free access to media valuation for women's football clubs in the UK while also bringing the teams together to meet and collaborate monthly on all topics across measurement, data, media valuation, sponsorship, commercial strategy and more.
Maya also aims to give back to the women's sport community by hosting informal networking lunches on a regular basis at the Allbright, of which she is a member, and encourages those she meets to do the same in their own way. Each lunch serves as an easy and fun networking opportunity for women in sport and then has in turn, enabled other lunch attendees to pay it forward and to create their own informal events, like most recently a London Lions game and coming up, a women-in-sport golf/driving range and drinks event with, noting that we must all still contribute to the growth of women's sport in our own ways.
Sherry draws upon a differentiating blend of creative voice and analytical insights to move business forward in achieving success in both traditional and digital markets. She is an early adopter of digital technologies and marketing concepts, championing the adoption of data-driven agile marketing, A/B testing, AI, and scrum execution to transform go-to-market and growth strategy. She has also earned recognition as a leader in marketing strategy for multicultural audiences. In her current role as Vice President of Marketing for E.W. Scripps/Katz Networks, she is the face of the company to highly influential cultural organizations and trade organizations to elevate involvement in market-relevant initiatives.
Today, she oversees ad sales marketing and branding as well as the design and delivery of strategy to reach new consumers through events/experiential marketing, promotion, media, PR, and strategic communications.
Throughout Sherry’s career, a trajectory that has woven through small, midsize, and Fortune 500 businesses, she has been the creative and business mind behind co-branded campaigns for strategic partners including Macy’s, GlaxoSmithKline, Pepsi, Bayer, Walgreens, GM, Unilever, Lowe’s, Kellogg’s, Church & Dwight, Citibank, Mars Wrigley, Kohl’s, Verizon, AmEx, Quaker, ConAgra, Target, Coca-Cola, and Chase.
Jenny Wall  is a marketing veteran with 30+ years of experience driving growth for iconic media brands like HBO, Netflix, Nickelodeon and Hulu. Passionate about transforming video advertising with data-driven strategies, Jenny is part of the executive team leading a staff of 315 helping to pioneer cross-platform video campaign innovation and advanced measurement and currency solutions at VideoAmp.