How rowing shapes resilient leaders
Through collaboration, perseverance, and decision-making under pressure, Katrina Edmunds’ journey back to competitive rowing highlights how the lessons learned in sport are the foundation for strong, effective leadership.
A former member of the GB rowing team in her youth, Katrina Edmunds hung up her oars and drifted in a different direction to pursue a career in education. For more than two decades, she stayed off the water until the lure of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, called her to return. The years she spent on the waterways of the UK as a teen instilled in her a relentless pursuit of excellence, mental toughness, a deep understanding of collaboration, and a profound connection to the water. Now, with a thriving career in international education and a full schedule as a wife and mother to twin daughters, she looked at Lake Geneva and questioned whether she could still call herself a rower.
Between work and family commitments, Edmunds felt she had no time to spare – certainly not for the grueling training that rowing demands – and the idea of returning to the sport seemed unrealistic. However, one day at a BPW Lake Geneva event, she heard a woman tell the story of how she had rowed 160km around the lake. Even in her prime, Edmunds had never rowed more than 30km, and she could still remember the all-encompassing exhaustion that ensued. Yet, something within her longed for reconnection – not just to the sport, but to a fundamental part of her identity and to belong once again to a community of strong women, as she wondered: “What if I could?”
