January 2023- December 2026
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Current Officers
- President: Ms. Diane Huffman – Canada
- Vice president: Dr. Becky Clark – USA
- Past President: Dr. Stiliani “Ani” Chroni – Norway/Greece
- Secretary General: Dr. Kanae Haneishi – USA/Japan
- Treasurer: Ms. Game Gotlhe G. Mothibi – Botswana/Germany)
President: Diane Huffman (Canada)
Diane is an active community development consultant and senior advisor on strategic and organizational sport and sport-for-development. Diane’s focuses on contributing toward an equitable, safe and responsible sport environment for women and girls. She believes in partnership for action, good governance particularly as it relates to influencing equal participation of women in leadership, and participation in sport. Diane’s community development experience has enabled advocacy groups to challenge policy and promote behaviour change. She has played an influential role on national and regional sport policy changes in Southern Africa and gained support toward gender mainstreaming, human rights, and women’s leadership with Regional governance structures, Ministries of Sport, National Olympic Committees and National Sport Associations in countries such as Vietnam, Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. She has been involved with groups such as a City for All Women in Canada, providing opportunities for all women to take part in municipal decision-making processes within her community. She also acted as the advisor to the Chair of the Gender Committee of the UN Sport for Peace and Development Program and the development of the Africa Women Sport Network.
As the president of WSI for the past four years, Diane has been working with a strong team ensuring the strength of WSI is moving forward with an the agenda of increasing opportunities for women in leadership and participation in sport.
Diane is keen to continue her role as president of WSI to assist the newly elected board in furthering the efforts of WomenSport International, continue to build networks and partnerships to extend the reach of WSI and for WSI be a women in sport organization that is not afraid to fight for the rights of all women in sport.
Past President: Dr. Stiliani (Ani) Chroni (Norway – Greece)
Dr. Ani Chroni possess extensive and specialized, versatile, high-level international experience with sport, academia, performance consulting and sport-related action-based organizations. Through a transnational career, her education, work in higher education and as a sport and business performance consultant, she has developed a solid multi-cultural know-how. Ani comes from alpine ski background but has supported performers in more than 20 sports worldwide and still acts as Technical Delegate Official for the FIS at international alpine racing. She also built wide-ranging skills, experience and valuable, dedicated network via serving in diverse academic and professional development committees, international sport federation committees, professional managing councils, NGO executive-boards, as well as inter-governmental council roles.
Ani coordinated an interdisciplinary EU program “Gender and Equity Issues” for the University of Thessaly in Greece (2005-2008); developed gender equity education material for the “Kallipateira” program delivered in Greek elementary and secondary schools (2006); conceptualized and organized the 1st International “Youth Sport with a Gender Perspective” Forum in Greece (2008). She participated as a gender equality expert in the EU “Prevention of Sexualized Violence in Sport” program (2012), the advisory group of UNESCO’s “Research in Socio-Economic Impacts of Sport” study (2013), UNESCO’s Int’l Charter for Sport revision (2015), the EU “Study on Gender-Based Violence in Sport” (2016). Recently, she served on the Steering Committee for the MINEPS VI Kazan Action Plan – Action 4 Feasibility Study (2019-20), supporting the launch of the Global Observatory for Girls and Women in Sport, Physical Activity, and Physical Education (GO), also led the Program Advice Consortium of the 3 longstanding women and sport organizations (WSI, IWG, IAPSGW) for the GO feasibility study.
Ani was the president of WSI from 2014-2019 and an active past president from 2019-2022. Her commitment to WomenSport International has been highly valued as a strong advocate within the United Nations systems. Fortunately, Ani is happy to continue her role in advocating for women in sport for another four years.
Vice President: Dr. Becky Clark, PHD, LCSW-R, CCPT, CGRS (United States)
Dr. Becky Clark (Becky) is a mental performance consultant, sports diplomat, mentor, scholar, and licensed psychotherapist with a private practice in New York City. She has consulted with Olympians, Paralympians, and Deaflympians in a number of sports, U.S. Deaf Women’s and Men’s National Volleyball teams, U.S. Deaf Women’s National Soccer team, professional, college, youth and recreational athletes throughout her career. As a therapist, she specializes in working with athletes with and without disabilities.
Presently she is an adjunct professor at NYU Silver School of Social Work where she co-developed the first graduate course on the Introduction of Mental Health in Athletes. Dr. Clark is a Mental Performance Consultant and Fellow of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology and listed in the United States Olympic Sport Psychology and Mental Health Registries.
She has published in sports-related publications including scholarly journals and books, and presented papers at various national and international organizations. Dr. Clark served as a Sports Envoy to Thailand and China to advance disability rights, inclusion and gender equality for the U.S. Department of State, and as an American Cultural Ambassador of Sports for the Deaf in Venezuela. She has worked with organizations, institutions and individuals from over 100 countries as a consultant and sports diplomat in the areas of leadership, mental skills training, youth sports, deaf & disability sport, trauma-informed sports, gender equality, inclusion and the use of sport as a tool for effective and positive social change.
Becky has been recognized for her effort and is a recipient of the President’s Council of Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Community Leadership Award and New York University Silver School of Social Work Distinguished Alumni Award.
She has been an active member of WomenSport International (WSI) since 2013 as Co Chair of the WSI Task Force on Deaf/Hard of Hearing Girls & Women in Sport. She presented research results of the TF research & activities at the 2014 IWG in Helsinki, Finland. Advisory Board member 2014-2018. Secretary- General 2019-2020. Board of Directors/Finance Manager 2020 to present.
Becky has been instrumental in building WSI organizational structure and system as a means to ensure WSI’s sustainability. As a person with extensive experience in sport and in particular fighting for the rights of women to lead and participate, she plans to ensure WSI continues to be the leading women in sport organization in the world.
Secretary General: Dr. Kanae Haneishi (Japan residing in the United States)
Dr. Kanae Haneishi is an Associate Professor of Exercise and Sport Science at Western Colorado University in the U.S. Although she is successfully working in the US, her roots are from Japan where she has been a member of the Japanese Association for Women in Sport (JWS) since 2000 and the co-founder of the Japanese Bridge Women’s Soccer Program since 2003.
In the US, Kanae is a board member and a member of the Diversity, Inclusion & Social Justice Committee for National Association of Kinesiology in Higher Education (NAKHE) as well as a member of the Advisory Committee for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Round Table at the SHAPE America (Society of Health and Physical Educator America) National Convention in 2021).
Kanae’s research focuses on Sport Pedagogy, particularly on Justice, Equity, Diversity, and
Inclusion in Physical Education and Sport Coaching. She has presented at numerous conferences and workshops on women in sport including not limited to SWEEP (Sport for Women Empowerment and Employment Program) International Conference in 2021, Indian Sherose Women’s Sports Conference in 2020, The International Women’s Sport Movement. Frontiers for Next Decade. Panel Discussion at Smith College in 2017, Women’s Sports Workshop at Women’s Sports Research Center in Tokyo in 2017, 5th IWG World Conference on Women and Sport in Sydney in 2010, and The World Congress of the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women in Cape Town in 2009.
Kanae is continuing with WSI from 2019-2022 as the Secretary General and the chair of the Communication Committee. She is looking forward to continuing in this role to assist all board members and members to be aware of our activities, advocate for change, record our successes and understand the challenges expressed by our members.
Treasurer: Game Gotlhe G. Mothibi (Botswana residing in Germany)
Game was appointed the Senior Manager at TAFISA starting in October 2022 but over the last number of years she has been a consultant offering training on gender modules, using sport for social and community impact, and management and leadership training. She is the founding Trustee of Wecho Trust, which operates sports for equality, inclusion, and community development.
Game worked closely with Africa Union, UNESCO, UN Women, Women Sport International, and The Commonwealth Secretariat promoting gender equity. She has served as
a member of the Expert Reference Group for Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the
use of sport for social and economic development, a project hosted by The Commonwealth, developed in 2019 and is now running online on futurelearn.com. She was part of the task team that revised the UNESCO Charter on Sport, Physical Education and Physical Activity. She has undertaken many projects like introducing MEMPROW in Botswana, a mentorship programme for young girls aged 13-19.
Game served as the Secretary General of the International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG) from 2014-2018. Through her leadership, she promoted Women and Sport and sport for all, in-line with world policies, declarations, and procedures and signed international and national organizations to the IWG’s (International Working Group on Women and Sport) Brighton Plus Helsinki Declaration. She presently serves as a Global Executive member of IWG for the term 2018-2022 and as Africa Representative for the term 2022-2026. Having co-founded Women Sport Africa Network (WSAN) and is now serving as the
Secretary-General.
Game is planning to bring Africa women in sports closer to WSI activities and contribute to the WSI work and Global women and sports Movement.