Changemakers: The Sports Edit part 2

Driving Change: Lessons from Advancing Gender Equity in Motorsport

As part of my research into successful changemakers, I spoke to several people in the sporting world to see how they’d achieved social or environmental impact within their sport. This article comes from a conversation I had with Eve Roberts, formerly EDI manager at Formula E.

Motorsport has traditionally been one of the most male-dominated arenas in the sporting world. Relative newcomer on the block Formula E provides an opportunity to do motorsport differently - and drive change (sorrynotsorry) in the wider sport.

Formula E hosted the first ever all-women’s test for an FIA World Championship in 2024, repeated in October 2025. This resulted in more female drivers being picked up by teams as development and rookie drivers. Eve’s brilliant work increasing gender equity has lessons beyond EDI in motorsport and indeed beyond sport. I’ve pulled out some key points from our conversation that all changemakers can learn from.

Internal integrity is important - but public commitments can help to accelerate change

Announcing that they were going to host the first ever all-women’s test session gave Formula E and the teams involved public accountability that accelerated internal change. Teams were asked to go out and find a maximum of two drivers, which they did, faster than if Eve and her team had allowed the gender gap to close organically.

Try something new - even if it feels small

The all-women’s test was a new idea with no guarantee it would succeed. But as Eve says, “when you put something out there, more ideas come to the table… you get more people, more resources, more success.” And when you try something new, even if it feels small, people see the momentum and see the possibilities and come on board. New ideas also give you a point of difference from your competitors, and help you to lean into your unique strengths.

Name your goal - even if it’s ambitious

Eve and her team were very clear that equity, not just representation, was their goal. The transparency of where Formula E were at and where they were headed helped to get more people on board. It helped to build trust, and allow people to see where they could fit into the bigger plan. It wasn’t about being perfect, it was about being honest - and ambitious.

It’s not enough to invite people to the table - you have to equip them to be there

In EDI work, sometimes people stop at representation. But for the women to succeed and to make the most of the test session, they needed support. Eve and her team provided bespoke support packs to help the women make the step up and to really flourish in a new and unfamiliar environment.

Meet people and organisations where they are at

As changemakers it can be very easy to hold tightly to what we think the world *should* look like and then communicate to others from there. But Eve took a more inclusive approach, and worked with senior leadership individually and collectively to establish what EDI meant to them personally and to the business. This made it much easier to align her work with the overall business goals, and to frame it in ways that made sense to the leadership, in turn making it much easier for them to buy into the work and back it when they needed support.

Find your WHY

Another smart element of Eve’s work with her senior leadership was helping to establish their “why” - what was their personal motivation for engaging with change work? What was the business’ motivation for engaging with change work? This really helped to build energy for the work, and allowed senior leaders to hold responsibility for the change collectively. It also enabled people to see themselves in the work which again increased buy-in.

Collaborate to scale impact

Eve worked with organisations across motorsport, other sports and other fields including education in developing her programmes. She found that working with different organisations with aligned values and missions not only increases the number of people you can reach with your work, but increases the knowledge and the insights you bring to it. Collaboration is essential for creating far-reaching change. 

Reflect, learn, share to influence

As changemakers we often don’t stop to reflect on what has worked and what hasn’t. In competitive environments especially we might be loathe to share our findings. But Eve pointed out that where the issues are the same, you’re likely to find that the solutions can be as well. Eve’s research and reflections into her own sport provided evidence that bolstered her business case for change, but also evaluating and sharing the results of those evaluations across the sports world enables better collaboration - and ultimately, faster and more far-reaching change.

If you would like to learn more about how to drive change in your world please do get in touch. And if you have a story of change you’d be willing to share, I would love to hear from you!