After a 33-year career with Deloitte, including serving as the company’s first female CEO from 2015 to 2019, Cathy Engelbert was named the first commissioner of the WNBA. One of her first acts as leader of the league was negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement early last year, which was heralded as historic and groundbreaking. The eight-year agreement features a 53 percent cash compensation increase, better family leave benefits (including full salary while on maternity leave and an annual child care stipend), upgraded travel accommodations and more career development opportunities in the off-season, among other benefits.
“My thought is we went big on our collective bargaining agreement, and the players were very, very happy with where we came out because it was a holistic look at how to treat a professional female athlete, and my hope is that that transcends into, not just women in basketball, but women in sport and women in society,” Engelbert told Worth.
