[ Can you share a little about your own background and your playing career? ]

I started as most Americans do - playing sports - because that's what we do in the United States. I started playing because my sister played and I wanted to be like my sister - that's a much longer and quite funny story which anybody who wants to know more about can go find online!

I really fell in love with the game and became very passionate about it very quickly. Nobody in my family played soccer before my sister and I. It's not something that got passed down, there was no club that everybody supported. It was a very new phenomenon for us but my family has also fallen in love with it - like my mom knows what the Champions League is - and it’s consumed our whole family now!

I played in the youth national teams and went to college playing soccer. I wanted to go pro but it didn’t exist at the time. It was the interim period between the current edition of the NWSL and what was the WPS. So I came abroad, and I was very fortunate and made my way through 5 different countries in Europe, playing in the Champions League and for the Italian national team.

I got to do a lot of really fun things and had a lot of amazing experiences, not only on the pitch, but off the pitch, and what that looks like for being a female player in Europe and in the US. This (these experiences) definitely guided me and were the building blocks of where I am today and wanting to build a platform that helps women working in sport.

[ You’ve played for big teams and the Italian national team, obviously in men’s football this implies lots of money, can you talk about your experience as a professional player from an earnings perspective? ]

I wish I had ‘male money’ - that would be amazing. I definitely do not.

I had to sue one of my clubs because they didn’t pay us! Actually most of us did, we were very lucky, we filed a class action and had one lawyer, she was fighting to get us all the money we were owed.

Also, sometimes you sign multiple contracts. You have a ‘white’ contract and a ‘black’ contract. You have a black contract because we weren’t professional players. One contract is above the table (legal) and the other is an illegal contract, so if they don’t pay you, you can’t even fight for the money, there’s nothing legally binding. That’s really uncomfortable. But when you’re passionate about what you do and you just want to play you blindly go into it. I wish I knew then what I know now because I would have taken it to CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport), I would go to FIFPRO (the global players’ union) and they would fight for me.

You actually have more rights than you know you did - but as a player you just don’t know that. I almost wish I could go back and talk to myself, but I can't. I mean I played on teams where they turned off my water - I got off the plane from the United States after 36 hours of traveling - and I had to boil water to take a bath. Landlords are knocking on our door, because the club hasn't paid our bill. Not being paid for months, and then getting one or two paychecks for the bare minimum and having to fight for the rest of my contract. I got injured at one club and they didn’t want to pay me anymore - they were like, “well, you're not on the pitch, so we don't pay you” - that’s not how it works, I rolled my ankle, it happens in football all the time!

So there’s a lot of complications that shouldn’t happen and there’s a lot of nuances that are very important to understand. Being a professional player does not mean making money like the men or making tons of money. It means being covered financially. It means being covered medically. It means getting retirement funding because money goes into your retirement.

Even today there are a lot of leagues that aren’t or have only recently become fully professional. The French league only became a professional league this summer (!), before they had professional clubs but it wasn’t a professional league which is just shocking and surprising.

I had a major injury in my career, and I was so lucky that I had that injury in France and I was on a professional contract because it meant that I got worker’s compensation, the government paid for all of my rehab and they paid 80% of my contract for a year until I was able to return to play.

[ What kind of jobs did you have alongside your playing career? ]

When I played in Italy, I created my own little English school, and I started working with the professional basketball team, and I was teaching all their staff English and helping them with their documents in English for the Euroleague and things like that.

I taught English a lot because it was kind of easy and easy to find people. I also created a couple of my own businesses and lots of other odd things. 1) I did it, because I wanted to have more money in my pocket in case the clubs didn't pay me and 2) I don't like being bored. I need to be constantly doing something! Even now I do way too many things at once (which is a positive and a detriment to myself). But I can't comfortably sit and watch TV. If I'm watching TV, I'm 90% doing something else. I've been that way since I was a kid.

[ Can you tell me about Valeur - what it is and what you work on? ]

Valeur is a salary benchmarking platform.

It's completely free to start, you can answer a lot of questions about your job, past job, preferences, if you have kids, sexual identity, location and of course salary. Then, you’re on the platform, and you get all the data that will help you look for new jobs, see where you are in the market, and consider a move. These are areas with lots of nuances and differences around the world that can get confusing.

Our platform is built for women, but inviting to men. We want men to come onto the platform, because we also need to be able to benchmark against the men and see if we really are that far behind in the gender gap.

Women can join our premium membership where they can join networking sessions where we use data to put women in the right rooms. Our objective is really to make sure that everybody's on the same playing field. Even if there's a CEO and an entry level - if the topic is new moms and both have a baby, the baby cries. There’s no difference in CEO or entry level.

We also bring in experts on topics that are most in demand, and what we learned from market research. For example, a lot of women want negotiation skills. We’re hoping by bringing in experts, we can give them the tools and the motivation to be more independent and empower themselves to close the gender pay gap one woman at a time.

So much really comes down to the lack of transparency in the sports industry - for everyone. The industry is not transparent when it comes to salaries for men, for women, it doesn't matter your role. A lot of sports teams and organizations take advantage of this because it's very exciting to work for a sports team and there's other incentives to be working in sports so they use this to their advantage, and I understand that. But we're really hoping that we can help people value themselves more and then back it up. It's a lot easier - when you’re discussing salary - to say, the data shows this, this is how much that job is going for at this club or in this state or country than saying I think I should make ‘X’. It’s much easier knowing who you’re ‘competing’ with.

It takes a lot of effort to apply for jobs and to look at job boards and make your CV correctly, especially today - you need to use the right keywords. Most of the time it just runs through software and even if you’re the best candidate, if you don’t put the right words in there, a human won’t actually see your resume. Again, men have this problem too but for women it’s an even bigger problem, because women often have less disposable time, less extra time. There's a lot of things that women go through that men don't necessarily, and so making it easier to get the right candidates into the right jobs is the best thing we could do for all of the sports industry.

Valeur is the French word for courage and worth - which is exactly what we want women to have in this industry.

[ Can you share some stats about the gender pay gap in sports? ]

I can keep going and going.

[ What are the biggest barriers to achieving more equitable and equal salaries in football specifically - and sports more broadly? ]

I’m not a sociologist and I haven’t studied all the different work on this - so I really don't want to speak as if I'm an expert - because I'm not, and I wouldn't place myself there. But I can speak from my personal experience and seeing certain things.

You have men that are fast tracked - you see ex-players that are put in C-suite level jobs or management level jobs because of how they performed on the pitch, and they might not have the capacity to actually perform those jobs but they'll be given the opportunity to get in that role.

And then a couple of things happen. 1) Sometimes they learn, and they become really good at it. And that's great, that's awesome, but women aren't usually just given a red carpet to the C-suite or 2) They get fired, but because they have this already on their resume, they get to go to a new club and a new club and a new club. We see that often in coaching, you get one big coaching job and you're set, you get to coach for the next 20 years at a lot of clubs, even if you're terrible, and you were never good - it's just wild!

If a woman goes into a high position and she doesn't do a good job. She's blackballed. We talk a lot about the glass ceiling but there's also something called the glass cliff where a woman is put in a situation where anyone would be likely to fail, but then she is never given a chance again.

There are a lot of barriers to women getting in there. Things like after work drinks, or golf on the weekend. Women often do not have extra time to do those things. And so sometimes it's inadvertent - it's not that the whole world is against women, and men are consciously, you know, all going into the room and deciding how they're gonna stop us from rising. It's just you normally promote your friends, or you get a better relationship with certain people because you're able to do extracurricular activities and for a lot of women that's just not possible and that does stunt their career growth.

[ Where is the most leverage for Valeur to make a real change? ]

We’re creating an audit for organizations to help them learn how to work better and help women internally and to attract more women to work for their organization. Also helping to set up that path to get women into the C-suite - what that looks like, mentors, allies within the industry, how to help, etc.

There are so many things, it’s silly but I’m a new mom and I find that we don’t help moms go back to work, which is ridiculous! If we go back to work, we pay taxes, create jobs (e.g. child care) and help the economy a lot. There are so many studies about how much money women bring into the world. But we don’t (prioritize this) - especially in the US, we don’t help moms return to work. Even in Europe it’s not great. So helping organizations create a better way to do this, understanding that - besides being the right thing to do - there are a lot of business reasons too.

[ Do you have a ‘target customer’ - who are you prioritizing to reach? ]

All women. Anything from college - those looking to come into the industry - women in the industry, all the way up to C-suite and owners and then also athletes themselves. We would love for more players to join our platform. I just know them well enough to know that they're going to be late responders, as I think they're a little worried about sharing salary. Once we’re up and running and people see the security measures we’ve taken - the data is anonymous and we take that very seriously - I think we’ll get athletes to come too, because player salaries are very non-transparent.

[ What is your role as CEO? How do you split responsibilities with your co-founder? ]

I have a co-founder, she is absolutely fabulous and brilliant! She is also CEO at another company, so I take on a lot of the work (at Valeur) but run through a lot of things with her.

Day to day I just do what needs to be done! We're beta testing right now and planning to launch a salary transparency campaign in the fall. So building this out, working on socials, creatives, getting companies to join our campaign and fundraising. So lots of different stuff!

We have a fantastic support system. We have a fantastic woman, Cassidy, she’s amazing and helps us so much. I hate using the word ‘intern’ because she’s so much more on so many levels, she just had extra time and is able to give a lot of this. Before her, Miriam, who I’d love to shout out. I’m so thankful for all these different people, especially women (we've had men too), who have donated time or sweat equity to help us get to where we are. It’s amazing to see how many people understand and believe in what we're trying to do. They just want it to exist, because they know it would help them.

[ Are there clubs, associations, etc that are doing a better job than others - one that could serve as a role model for others? ]

No, not really. I mean, obviously, some of the CBAs (collective bargaining agreements) in the States have done some really cool stuff, trying to create equality between the US women's and men’s national teams. Some federations have come out with equal pay for travel and stuff like that for national teams.

But I think for us, too, it's not ‘equal’. I think the word equal is really hard because the world is not equal. PSG women should not be paid the same as PSG men - they're not bringing in the same return on the product so that doesn't make sense. I think equitable is a better way to look at this.

I think it's also hard because when we talk about what happens on the sporting pitch, it's much different than what happens in the office. One HR person to another HR person, salaries should be comparable. So it also depends on which part of the industry we're talking about if we're talking about equity, or if we're talking about equality.

[ How can people not involved in football support Valeur and your mission? ]

They can come to the platform! They can still join the expert exchanges and be part of it. Hopefully one day we'll scale and we won't just be in the sports industry and all the industries to make sure the gender pay gap is closed for all women.

You can also follow us on socials and join our campaign and pledge to share your salary and encourage companies (or hold them accountable) to put a salary band. A realistic salary band! In some states in the US now, you legally have to put a salary band but some organizations play with it to the point where they'll say $60k to $180k. That is not a salary band. That's even worse than writing ‘competitive salary’.

We’re always looking to grow our village. We’re always looking to add people with skills who can help us really make a difference for everybody working in the industry!