Keynote and Guest Speakers

Academic Keynote:

Professor Holly Thorpe

Professor Thorpe is internationally recognised for developing innovative, interdisciplinary, and feminist approaches to understand people's lived experiences of sport and exercise.

Dr Holly Thorpe (she/her) is a Professor in the Sociology of Sport and Physical Culture at the University of Waikato, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her research focuses on sport, physical culture and gender, and she continues to seek new innovations in social theory, qualitative methods, and representational styles to better understand the complexities of moving bodies and sporting cultures.

She has published over 130 articles and chapters on these topics, and has authored five books and nine edited books. Her most recent books include Action Sports and the Olympic Games (with Belinda Wheaton, Palgrave, 2022), Gender, Sport and Development (with Lyndsay Hayhurst and Megan Chawansky, Emerald, 2021), and Feminist New Materialisms, Sport and Fitness: A Lively Entanglement (with Julie Brice and Marianne Clark, Palgrave, 2020). She is co-editor of the Palgrave series New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures (with Kim Toffoletti, Aarti Ratna and Jessica Francombe-Webb).

Professor Thorpe has worked closely with an array of international and national sports organizations to inform new practices, processes and policy development towards gender equity, inclusion and social justice.

Industry Keynote:

Karen Jones

Karen Jones will be the industry keynote delivering an address at the Symposium dinner at Commbank Stadium on the evening on the 8th of August.

Karen Jones is the Chief Executive of the NSW Office of Sport, is on the board of the NSW Institute of Sport and is a well-known and regarded sport executive and administrator in Australia.

At the NSW Office of Sport, Karen leads over 400 employees across 18 locations, to set the State’s sport policy agenda and provide direct services to communities.

Karen’s role is to work with both state and national governments, the sport sector and key partners to create healthier people, connect communities and make a stronger state through the power of sport.  

Since 2019, Karen has led the Office of Sport and is privileged to have headed several key initiatives including:

• Delivery of the Strategic Plan 2020-2024, and a new Strategic Plan soon to be released
• Administering billions of dollars in funding to support participation
• Development and implementation of the first women in sport strategy "Her Sport Her Way"
• Commissioning and delivering the first ‘Value of Sport’ report
• Execution of the Regional Sport and Active Recreation Plans
• Execution of the 10 World Cups in 10 Years strategy, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup
• Merging of key government sport and entertainment agencies

Prior to this appointment Karen was the Executive Director of the Sports Infrastructure Group overseeing the delivery of sport infrastructure. Earlier in her executive career, Karen was the Director of Transport Assessments and the Director of Infrastructure Projects at the Department of Planning and Environment.

Karen holds a Masters of Business Administration and has studied at Harvard University, Grenoble Ecole de Management, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Western Sydney University.

Please register for the symposium and make your payment here (opens in a new window)

For more information, please contact the symposium organisers at iwss@westernsydney.edu.au