Photo by: Justin Lafleur
IL Women Feature - WNBA Commissioner, Cathy Engelbert: "My athletics experiences... molded me."
6/19/2020 3:04:00 PM | Women's Lacrosse, Support, Features
These challenging times in our country, and world, demand leadership.
Current WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has developed into one of the best and most influential leaders in not only women's sports, but also the business world.
It's easy to forget she was also a former lacrosse player… and a good one at that.
"Lacrosse was my sport," said Engelbert. "I was the New Jersey Player of the Year, recruited into the Lehigh program by Coach Judy Baxter."
Engelbert was highly decorated in her collegiate days, garnering East Coast Conference All-Star and Regional All-America recognition. She was also senior captain in 1986. As a team, Lehigh reached its first NCAA Tournament in 1984, advancing to the national quarterfinals and finishing the season ranked No. 8 in the nation.
"I have very fond memories of the sport," said Engelbert.
After coming to Lehigh for lacrosse, she also walked on to the basketball team. With her student-athlete experience as a strong foundation, what's followed has been an influential career in the business world. She was CEO of Big Four Accounting Firm Deloitte and named one of the Most Powerful Women by Fortune Magazine.
Two pretty impressive entries on her resume.
Last May, Engelbert added another impressive note, becoming the first-ever commissioner of the Women's National Basketball Association. However, less than a year into her new role came the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I've been through the challenges of Y2K, the dot-com bubble, the crisis around Enron that led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Financial Crisis of 2008-09, the Great Recession and other personal and professional crises," said Engelbert. "But nothing compares to the enormity of impact of this pandemic – both health and economic."
From the beginning, Engelbert has focused on an important concept – scenario planning.
"That's one of the things I feel Deloitte does really well," she said. "Right as I was moving on to the WNBA, we were reading Wall Street economists predicting an economic downturn in the next 18-to-24 months. But no one ever thought it would come from a global health pandemic."
Even before the NBA shut down on March 11, Engelbert and her staff started planning the WNBA Draft and thinking about what the 2020 season would look like.
"When COVID-19 began to spread, we rolled up our sleeves immediately," she said.
The pandemic hasn't changed Engelbert's hopes and plans. It's just made them more challenging.
To no one's surprise, she has already delivered. One of the first very tangible deliveries came in mid-April when the WNBA became the first professional league to hold its draft, virtually. It aired on ESPN and saw Engelbert announce the picks from her home.
"We only had about three weeks to figure out all the draft details," she said. "It was March and our draft was scheduled for April 17. We really wanted to keep that date.
"We had planned to have it live in New York… Then it all changed."
Reacting to change is an important attribute of any leader. Engelbert has adjusted, and so has her support team in creative and innovative ways.
"I'm really proud of what we did around the three honorary draft picks, the three girl basketball players killed on the helicopter with Kobe Bryant back in January," she said. "I'm proud of ESPN, and my team did an amazing job."
Engelbert is no stranger to teams, both in the sports and business worlds.
"My athletics experiences – along with my three-decade career at Deloitte – molded me," she said.
Her athletics experiences featured multiple sports, rare today, but common in the 1980s.
"It was not easy to play back-to-back sports," she said. "Basketball would get over the first week of March and lacrosse would start around the same time.
"I do think it's a shame for people who want to play those two sports because basketball and lacrosse are a lot more similar than people realize," Engelbert continued. "I was a point guard in basketball and center in lacrosse, which today is called midfielder."
There were, and still are, plenty of similarities between the positions.
"When you were the center in lacrosse, you were running the offense," said Engelbert. "You were also getting back on defense. The lanes of basketball – the passing, the assists, the steals – were all very similar in the women's lacrosse game."
Today, Engelbert isn't running an offense, but she's running something bigger – a major professional sports league.
"I tell people all the time about the leadership skills I learned at Lehigh," she said. "I was really shy when I got on campus back in August of 1982 and I came out a confident young woman.
"Did anyone ever think when I was at Lehigh that I'd become the CEO of a one hundred thousand person firm? I'm sure not. But that's the funny thing about life," Engelbert continued. "I had a great family foundation, a great athletic foundation and then Lehigh gave me a great academic, social and athletic foundation to drive my leadership to what it ultimately became."
Current Lehigh head women's lacrosse coach (and member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame) Jill Redfern appreciates what Engelbert has accomplished and how athletics have helped her along the way.
"Cathy is a tremendous example of how the inherent values of sports, coupled with hard work and education, can foster the true qualities of a transcendent leader," said Redfern.
Engelbert is putting that transcendent leadership to use with a pair of simultaneous crises – the pandemic, along with racial injustice and inequalities.
When speaking about the pandemic, Engelbert said, "A crisis tends to accelerate or deepen problems that existed before the crisis, so they get amplified. But it also presents an opportunity to work on fixing those challenges. If you believed you had a good foundation and good strategy, you've got to stick with that, take some risks, make decisions and move forward.
"I'll tell you, it's not easy."
Nothing about the last few months have been easy.
The WNBA tweeted this following the death of George Floyd.
A few days later, Engelbert tweeted: "As part of our commitment to make an impact, the WNBA will donate proceeds from the sale of its 'Bigger than Ball' women's empowerment merchandise to groups working against racial inequities."
Engelbert and the WNBA worked towards a plan for 2020 WNBA season, which was announced on Monday. Teams will have a 22-game season with full playoffs, held at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, and without fans.
Engelbert discussed the upcoming season on ESPN's special Monday night called The Return of Sports. She admitted health and safety is their number one priority.
"[We're] working on fan innovation that we were already working on because it was one of the pillars of our strategy," Engelbert said to host Mike Greenberg on Monday. "Also really looking at IMG Academy – a best in-class athletic, training environment, competitive environment – as a place for our players to all come together and for the first time in WNBA history, be together, particularly as they look to have their voices heard around social justice."
"What I've heard from [our players] is there will be a lot of eyes on us; let's think about how strong our voices can be," Engelbert continued. "Let's think about what this platform looks like that we have. We have one of the most diverse sports in professional sports, 80 percent black women. All of our players are really, really looking forward to the platform they can launch from IMG Academy around social justice and their voice.
"We're going to work together with the players around that and make sure we support them in every way we can."
The world is unpredictable, especially lately, but no matter how the days and weeks play out, leaders keep pushing forward and that's exactly what Engelbert is doing. She is focused on the here and now, but with an eye towards the long term.
"I was hired to help drive revenue in a different way for the WNBA, and hopefully then even more broadly for women's sports," said Engelbert.
The pandemic may slow down the growth for now, but with her student-athlete experience in her back pocket – along with a more than three-decade career in the business world – there is no one more ready than Cathy Engelbert to tackle the challenge of our lifetimes.
And it all might not have been possible without being recruited to Lehigh for lacrosse, a sport that has remained part of her life to this day.
"My daughter played club lacrosse at Villanova and competed at a very accomplished high school program," she said. "I enjoyed watching her play.
"We still throw the lacrosse ball around to this day."
Current WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has developed into one of the best and most influential leaders in not only women's sports, but also the business world.
It's easy to forget she was also a former lacrosse player… and a good one at that.
"Lacrosse was my sport," said Engelbert. "I was the New Jersey Player of the Year, recruited into the Lehigh program by Coach Judy Baxter."
Engelbert was highly decorated in her collegiate days, garnering East Coast Conference All-Star and Regional All-America recognition. She was also senior captain in 1986. As a team, Lehigh reached its first NCAA Tournament in 1984, advancing to the national quarterfinals and finishing the season ranked No. 8 in the nation.
"I have very fond memories of the sport," said Engelbert.
After coming to Lehigh for lacrosse, she also walked on to the basketball team. With her student-athlete experience as a strong foundation, what's followed has been an influential career in the business world. She was CEO of Big Four Accounting Firm Deloitte and named one of the Most Powerful Women by Fortune Magazine.
Two pretty impressive entries on her resume.
Last May, Engelbert added another impressive note, becoming the first-ever commissioner of the Women's National Basketball Association. However, less than a year into her new role came the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I've been through the challenges of Y2K, the dot-com bubble, the crisis around Enron that led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Financial Crisis of 2008-09, the Great Recession and other personal and professional crises," said Engelbert. "But nothing compares to the enormity of impact of this pandemic – both health and economic."
From the beginning, Engelbert has focused on an important concept – scenario planning.
"That's one of the things I feel Deloitte does really well," she said. "Right as I was moving on to the WNBA, we were reading Wall Street economists predicting an economic downturn in the next 18-to-24 months. But no one ever thought it would come from a global health pandemic."
Even before the NBA shut down on March 11, Engelbert and her staff started planning the WNBA Draft and thinking about what the 2020 season would look like.
"When COVID-19 began to spread, we rolled up our sleeves immediately," she said.
The pandemic hasn't changed Engelbert's hopes and plans. It's just made them more challenging.
To no one's surprise, she has already delivered. One of the first very tangible deliveries came in mid-April when the WNBA became the first professional league to hold its draft, virtually. It aired on ESPN and saw Engelbert announce the picks from her home.
"We only had about three weeks to figure out all the draft details," she said. "It was March and our draft was scheduled for April 17. We really wanted to keep that date.
"We had planned to have it live in New York… Then it all changed."
Reacting to change is an important attribute of any leader. Engelbert has adjusted, and so has her support team in creative and innovative ways.
"I'm really proud of what we did around the three honorary draft picks, the three girl basketball players killed on the helicopter with Kobe Bryant back in January," she said. "I'm proud of ESPN, and my team did an amazing job."
Engelbert is no stranger to teams, both in the sports and business worlds.
"My athletics experiences – along with my three-decade career at Deloitte – molded me," she said.
Her athletics experiences featured multiple sports, rare today, but common in the 1980s.
"It was not easy to play back-to-back sports," she said. "Basketball would get over the first week of March and lacrosse would start around the same time.
"I do think it's a shame for people who want to play those two sports because basketball and lacrosse are a lot more similar than people realize," Engelbert continued. "I was a point guard in basketball and center in lacrosse, which today is called midfielder."
There were, and still are, plenty of similarities between the positions.
"When you were the center in lacrosse, you were running the offense," said Engelbert. "You were also getting back on defense. The lanes of basketball – the passing, the assists, the steals – were all very similar in the women's lacrosse game."
Today, Engelbert isn't running an offense, but she's running something bigger – a major professional sports league.
"I tell people all the time about the leadership skills I learned at Lehigh," she said. "I was really shy when I got on campus back in August of 1982 and I came out a confident young woman.
"Did anyone ever think when I was at Lehigh that I'd become the CEO of a one hundred thousand person firm? I'm sure not. But that's the funny thing about life," Engelbert continued. "I had a great family foundation, a great athletic foundation and then Lehigh gave me a great academic, social and athletic foundation to drive my leadership to what it ultimately became."
Current Lehigh head women's lacrosse coach (and member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame) Jill Redfern appreciates what Engelbert has accomplished and how athletics have helped her along the way.
"Cathy is a tremendous example of how the inherent values of sports, coupled with hard work and education, can foster the true qualities of a transcendent leader," said Redfern.
Engelbert is putting that transcendent leadership to use with a pair of simultaneous crises – the pandemic, along with racial injustice and inequalities.
When speaking about the pandemic, Engelbert said, "A crisis tends to accelerate or deepen problems that existed before the crisis, so they get amplified. But it also presents an opportunity to work on fixing those challenges. If you believed you had a good foundation and good strategy, you've got to stick with that, take some risks, make decisions and move forward.
"I'll tell you, it's not easy."
Nothing about the last few months have been easy.
The WNBA tweeted this following the death of George Floyd.
The time for change is now. Enough is enough. pic.twitter.com/hXbSgppm5T
— WNBA (@WNBA) May 29, 2020
A few days later, Engelbert tweeted: "As part of our commitment to make an impact, the WNBA will donate proceeds from the sale of its 'Bigger than Ball' women's empowerment merchandise to groups working against racial inequities."
Engelbert and the WNBA worked towards a plan for 2020 WNBA season, which was announced on Monday. Teams will have a 22-game season with full playoffs, held at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, and without fans.
Engelbert discussed the upcoming season on ESPN's special Monday night called The Return of Sports. She admitted health and safety is their number one priority.
"[We're] working on fan innovation that we were already working on because it was one of the pillars of our strategy," Engelbert said to host Mike Greenberg on Monday. "Also really looking at IMG Academy – a best in-class athletic, training environment, competitive environment – as a place for our players to all come together and for the first time in WNBA history, be together, particularly as they look to have their voices heard around social justice."
"What I've heard from [our players] is there will be a lot of eyes on us; let's think about how strong our voices can be," Engelbert continued. "Let's think about what this platform looks like that we have. We have one of the most diverse sports in professional sports, 80 percent black women. All of our players are really, really looking forward to the platform they can launch from IMG Academy around social justice and their voice.
"We're going to work together with the players around that and make sure we support them in every way we can."
The world is unpredictable, especially lately, but no matter how the days and weeks play out, leaders keep pushing forward and that's exactly what Engelbert is doing. She is focused on the here and now, but with an eye towards the long term.
"I was hired to help drive revenue in a different way for the WNBA, and hopefully then even more broadly for women's sports," said Engelbert.
The pandemic may slow down the growth for now, but with her student-athlete experience in her back pocket – along with a more than three-decade career in the business world – there is no one more ready than Cathy Engelbert to tackle the challenge of our lifetimes.
And it all might not have been possible without being recruited to Lehigh for lacrosse, a sport that has remained part of her life to this day.
"My daughter played club lacrosse at Villanova and competed at a very accomplished high school program," she said. "I enjoyed watching her play.
"We still throw the lacrosse ball around to this day."
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