Shirley Hooper is the newly elected Vice-President of World Netball.
Shirley, who has stepped down from her current role as a Further Director on the World Netball Board, will replace Sue Taylor AM, Vice-President since 2011. The election took place virtually at the World Netball Congress – a meeting of the Membership on the 10th of July 2021.
Born in New Zealand, netball has been a continuing thread through Shirley’s life – starting as a player at the age of 7 in a tiny rural school and moving on to become a New Zealand umpire at the age of 18.
Netball continued to be a part of her life in her professional marketing career – where she oversaw what was then New Zealand’s largest sponsorship deal for women’s sport. In a later role as Marketing Director at Television New Zealand, she was involved in promoting netball to viewers and advertisers alike.
She moved into governance with roles as Chairperson of regional netball and franchise teams and served on the Board of Netball New Zealand for 9 years, where she was chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee. She was also Chair of Trans-Tasman Netball Limited for 3 years – the entity behind the ANZ Championships.
Shirley was elected to the World Netball Board as a Further Director at its Congress in Botswana in 2017 and has served as Chair of the Commercial Committee for the past two years.
Liz Nicholl CBE, World Netball President comments: “Congratulations to Shirley on being elected as our Vice-President. We are delighted to have such an inspiring, hard-working, and commendable individual step into this role. I look forward to working with Shirley on growing the sport, driving game development, and inspiring through engagement and collaboration.”
Acknowledging the work of Sue Taylor, Nicholl comments: “On behalf of the World Netball family, I’d like to thank Sue Taylor for her exceptional dedication to World Netball over her 14 years on our Board, 10 as Vice-President. Sue has been instrumental to the development of the sport and has helped make World Netball what it is today.”
Shirley comments: “I am honoured to be elected by the global netball family for this role. I have learnt over the past 4 years that netball’s reach and connection into communities across the world is significant and very powerful. With over 20 million people involved in our sport, there are many great opportunities for us all to collaborate and continue to grow and inspire new generations of netball players, umpires, coaches, officials and administrators and I look forward to playing my part in this.”
Shirley will formally take on the role of Vice-President with immediate effect.