Huge fanfare please for our very first guest on the 94% podcast - the iconic Jennifer Beals.
Known for her groundbreaking role in Flashdance and as Bette Porter in The L Word, she's a passionate LGBTQ+ ally.
But Jennifer is also a serious triathlete, who played sport throughout her school years ( including basketball and field hockey). Now, she's also an avid pickleball player! (Pickleball!)
In this wide-reaching episode of the 94% podcast with co-hosts Rachel Shelley (aka Helena Peabody on The L Word) and Nikki Symmons (former international hockey player for Ireland and DEI expert), Jennifer shares how sports have shaped her journey, building resilience, teamwork, and discipline—qualities that have guided her incredible career both off-screen and on.
Telling stories she's never shared before, from her youth and her life now, about how sport spawns success. She even surprises herself with some small epiphanies!
Jennifer truly is one of the 94% and we're proud to celebrate her with our first gold medal.
94% of women working in C-suite executive roles played sport at a younger age,
52% at university level*.
In all walks of life, not just the C-Suite, participation in sport from an early age promotes professional excellence, in whatever field a woman moves into. And that’s a fact.
Sport helps develop resilience, discipline and teamwork. Together these form a holy trinity for success.
Hosts Rachel Shelley (Helena Peabody on TV’s The L Word, gay icon and mother to a teen girl in London) and Dublin’s Nikki Symmons (former international hockey and cricket player for 13 years, Ireland’s first female athlete to come out as gay and a specialised DEI advisor) talk to some of your favourite high-achieving women from all walks of life, about how their sporting experiences have shaped them in weird, wonderful and often whacky ways. With a lot of laughter en route.
They discuss the wild and varied parallels they see between competitive sport and their real-life experiences.
How lessons learnt on the pitch shape their behaviour off the field.
How sport has made them the women they are today.
And how they got off the blocks at the very start.
But it’s not just the sporting elite in their new careers that we hear from, although our host Nikki will keep us anchored in that arena. Our guests include high-flyers from the world of entertainment, politics, media and corporate… wherever successful athletes find themselves.
And that’s everywhere.
Follow us:
*EY Women Athletes Business Network and ESPN W 2014
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