Mentorship has been an excuse not to promote women.

We all know business financial performance improves when more women are in senior levels of management and leadership.

I find it fascinating that sport has such a strong connection to success in business. Arguably, C-suite women are some of the most successful women, and more than half of them played at a more advanced level than just the general population of women in business that had sport in their background.

Research shows that women at that mid level tend to get promoted based on performance, and men tend to get promoted based on potential.

What is clear is that business leaders must commit to champion change - to be transparent about their goals for change, to align their incentives systems to drive the change, and to make sure their work environments are flexible in a way that allows men and women who choose to work to be able to achieve all of their potential.

Sometimes women get devastated by failing. Athletes don't; they just know that means they've got to practise harder, and they've got to do something else differently.