Lisa Pearce is the Chief Executive of British Wheelchair Basketball. Her focus and unrelenting determination has seen Lisa’s career fast-track, from a beginnings in sports management to directorship roles in third sector and sporting organisations. Her passion to embed inclusion and equality through widening participation in sport has resulted in a legacy of phenomenal success.
Lisa’s leadership of the British Wheelchair Basketball team has evidenced the power that can be unlocked from a small, but highly motivated workforce and network. During the past 12 months Lisa has led the NGB to secure new investment into a new £1.5m Inspire a Generation Programme, nurtured and welcomed new commercial investment into the sport, and secured future funding for the Performance Programme.
Alongside this, and under the shadow cast by the COVID-19 Pandemic, Lisa has also instigated and delivered one of the most radical transformations to the Sports performance infrastructure in its history. The welcoming of four High Performance Partnerships (HPP) in April 2021, and the unveiling of the UK’s first professional women’s wheelchair basketball league (Women’s Premier League) in May 2021 marked historic moments in time for British Wheelchair Basketball. The announcements showcased the vision and bravery of Lisa’s leadership and will change the landscape of wheelchair basketball for future generations.
The new HPP model will see four leading UK Universities become centres of excellence for wheelchair basketball and create greater opportunity for skilled athletes to access world-class coaching and training facilities.
Lisa’s fundamental mantra that ‘You have to see it to be it’ will ultimately forever change the narrative for female and male elite wheelchair basketball in the UK. Her sincere hope is to end the marginalisation of the sport, and that by positioning and delivering elite parasport alongside ‘mainstream’ sports through the same model and same fan engagement mediums, British Wheelchair Basketball will demonstrate the same (equal) opportunities to access sporting opportunities for both disabled and non-disabled participants.
Lisa’s far-reaching career has delivered many notable achievements and imparted a rich legacy for the sports she has influenced. Whilst at the LTA she led the Davis Cup legacy offering free tennis to 10,000 new young people, delivered by 1024 new Coaches. A campaign that was created and mobilised within 8 weeks.
