Nancy Hogshead-Makar

Nancy Hogshead-Makar is an Olympic champion, a civil rights lawyer, and CEO of Champion Women, a non-profit providing legal advocacy for girls and women in sports. Focus areas include equal play, such as traditional Title IX compliance, sexual harassment, abuse and assault, as well as employment, pregnancy and LGBT discrimination within sport.

Hogshead-Makar led an eight-year effort to protect athletes from sexual abuse in club and Olympic sports, that is, the 16 million athletes participating in sports not associated with schools. Most recently, she galvanized the sport, child protection, and civil rights communities in support of a new federal law, the SafeSport Act, signed into law in February, 2018. Olympic Committee reforms that include more development money and power to athletes, along with stronger gender equity protections, guide the near-future work.

Her book, co-authored with Andrew Zimbalist, "Equal Play, Title IX, and Social Change," has received acclaim. She was the lead author of "Pregnant and Parenting Student-Athletes: Resources and Model Policies," published by the NCAA.

Hogshead-Makar is a frequent keynote speaker, and regularly contributes to shaping policy for girls and women. She has served on the NCAA Task Force on Gender Equity, and on the boards of Equality League, the Association of Title IX Administrators, the Aspen Institute’s Sport and Society, the One Love Foundation, and the World Olympians Association. For 10 years, she was the Co-Chair of American Bar Association Committee on the Rights of Women. Sports Illustrated Magazine listed her as one of the most influential people in the history of Title IX.

Hogshead-Makar won three Gold medals and one Silver medal at the 1984 Olympics. She has been inducted into eleven halls of fame, including the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.