How We Began

On December 23, 2016, a group of Lottery industry women executives received a call to action: to become a part of an initiative aimed at encouraging the development of women in leadership in the industry. The call came from Rebecca Paul, and her colleagues of Lottery CEOs and top executives. The leadership of Women in Lottery Leadership (WiLL) is deeply invested in the global Lottery business, possessing a passion for supporting strategic initiatives to sustain and modernize it. As dedicated supporters of women in the industry, the WiLL leadership has mentored many of us across the world as we strive to fulfill challenging Lottery leadership positions.

The leadership of WiLL is dedicated to the goal of creating an action-oriented movement that has passion, purpose, and produces real-world results for everyone.  Rebecca expresses the vision for WiLL as being “a highly inclusive, multi-faceted, and ambitious program that paves a path for the talent, abilities, and passion of Lottery women professionals to realize their full potential.”  A mission that involves everyone, WiLL is about giving a voice and influence to the highly capable women who are helping to shape the future of the Lottery industry.  The goal is to create a program designed to nurture the development of our many talented women colleagues.

There have been productive meetings and receptions to date.  Ideas and action-plans are being formulated and everyone is poised to make things happen.  Among other things, this WiLL website endeavors to serve as a communications hub, a platform to facilitate interaction across a global network of women and men to shape the future of this enterprise; and also to post announcements and schedule of WiLL events and services.

We invite you to communicate your thoughts and ideas for how to evolve WiLL into the most meaningful and impactful enterprise it can be.  As an all-inclusive organization, we welcome your input and guidance.

Why We Need WiLL

A recent global survey of Lottery CEOs yielded that, out of over 170 CEOs leading regulated lotteries, only 25 (that’s less than 15%) are female. The McKinsey & Company’s report, “Diversity Matters”, found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity outperform those in the bottom quartile by 15 percent.  “As women represent over half of the global talent pool, it is clear to us that women should be at the forefront of the economic and social scene, not just out of a sense of fairness, but to ensure that the very best minds, men’s and women’s alike, are brought together to address the challenges that society faces.  Achieving gender diversity in corporations, at all levels, is a long and demanding journey, which requires the involvement of the whole company and the strong commitment of top management.  Therefore, we believe that beyond gender diversity, what always matters ultimately is leadership!”  McKinsey & Co., “Women Matter,” 2009.

Pew Research found that in 2014, only 26 women were serving as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies – roughly 5%. In 1995 there were none.  The mission of WiLL is to continue to accelerate this progress!