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Celebrating Women's History Month: Lisa Borders

Lisa M. Borders was named the W.N.B.A. president earlier this year. Despite her interest in the sports, however, her professional experience is in everything but—Borders has worked in healthcare, philanthropy and real estate. 

Borders was a member of the Atlanta City Council and a vice mayor until most recently, when she led the Coca-Cola Foundation. “The leagues and teams have all the sports management experience we really need,” she told The New York Times earlier this year. “The leader needs complementary skills.”

She describes herself as a “raving fan” of the Atlanta Dream, the franchise she helped attract when she was president of the local City Council. Her work in her community focused primarily on family issues in the areas of education, healthcare and housing. She is a board member of Atlanta Women’s Foundation, Grady Health System, Woodruff Arts Center and Operation Hope.  As a co-founder of No Labels, a political organization whose mission is to "usher in a new era of focused problem solving in American politics,” Borders remains deeply engaged with public policy.

As head of the WNBA, though, she feels it is her mission to travel, listen to ideas and take stock of what people from all different levels of involvement in the WNBA have to say, and she has made a point to say that this is directly related to her support of her fellow women. As she told ESPN in February:

"[P]eople would say, 'Really, you want me to go see women playing basketball?' And I would say, 'Well, have you ever done it? How do you know that you wouldn't enjoy it?'"

As a proven executive with a passion for the sport, the she is what NBA commissioner Silver said in a statement calls the right leader at a pivotal time in the league’s history. This momentum is something she hopes to carry in all areas of her life, political and professional, earning her recognition as one of our Women’s History Month leaders.

"We are not close to our best," she said in the ESPN interview. "Women are half of the population in this country. We're not half of Congress or half of the governors. We've never had a female president. So sports is not the only area where we're looking to make up ground or try to break down misconceptions or poor perception."

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