Billie Jean King

I had the honor of meeting tennis legend Billie Jean King following an executive club breakfast where she was the guest speaker.   Deloitte is collaborating with the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative on issues around diversity and inclusion, so was a chief sponsor of the event.   I'm proud of the way Deloitte has made Inclusion a core of our business, and it's exciting to see us work with other organizations like BJKLI to advance the topic.   Following a conversation between Billie and the moderator, she walked through the crowd (while Philadelphia Freedom, the song Elton John wrote for her, was playing) hitting autographed tennis balls to the crowd.   I'm the proud owner of two: one from this event and one from an internal Deloitte women's initiative event where she spoke to our female partners, directors and senior managers, but I didn't meet her.

 

 

At the meet-and-greet, I told her that my 6-year old was taking tennis lessons, and she said she thinks we should call it practice.  No one except tennis and golf call is lessons. . . soccer practice, swim practice, basketball practice. . . .She also said that he'll probably be beating me soon.  I hope so!