Di­ane Hen­der­son be­came the first woman and the 11th pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) at the his­toric first vir­tu­al elec­tion held on Sat­urday.

The elec­tion of of­fi­cers took place af­ter the con­clu­sion of the 75th an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM). The au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments and the an­nu­al re­port, both for 2021, were ap­proved at the AGM.

The ex­pe­ri­enced sports ad­min­is­tra­tor won by a mar­gin of 24 votes to 10 over oth­er con­tender Rowe­na Williams, with 70 per cent of the vote and re­places Bri­an Lewis, who served two terms as head of the TTOC.

“Thank you to the gen­er­al coun­cil for en­trust­ing me in lead­ing the TTOC and tak­ing on this new man­tle. I am stoked and thrilled in demon­strat­ing my lead­er­ship abil­i­ties to car­ry the or­gan­i­sa­tion in­to the new world of sport, in­no­va­tion and com­mer­cial­ism,” said Hen­der­son

Wi­il­liams’ ser­vices will be used in the po­si­tion of third vice pres­i­dent along with Ephraim Ser­rette, ad­vi­sor to the Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, who was elect­ed first vice pres­i­dent and Reyah Richard­son, the sec­ond vice pres­i­dent.

All oth­er po­si­tions ex­cept pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dent ran un­op­posed.

Pres­i­dent Hen­der­son has con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to sports gov­er­nance, ath­lete wel­fare, strate­gic plan­ning and sports me­di­a­tion. As Chair of Women In Sport Com­mis­sion, she has been a key pro­po­nent for the con­tin­ued push for Ed­u­ca­tion in Sport in T&T.

Hen­der­son has a demon­strat­ed his­to­ry of work­ing in sports man­age­ment, be­ing the first fe­male on the ex­ec­u­tive board of the NAAA’s leav­ing a line of fe­male ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers who con­tributed to its progress and has been an in­te­gral mem­ber and very in­stru­men­tal in sev­er­al as­pects of de­vel­op­ment at the TTOC.

She is al­so the cur­rent chair­per­son of the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon (TTIM) com­mit­tee where she has been re­spon­si­ble for the fi­nal de­ci­sion-mak­ing on event co­or­di­na­tion, de­vel­op­ing race por­tals, so­cial me­dia up­keep, web­site co­or­di­na­tion and pri­vate sec­tor fundrais­ing.

Pres­i­dent Hen­der­son, who re­cent­ly earned a spot on the sev­en-mem­ber com­mit­tee of the World Triathlon Mul­ti­sport Com­mit­tee, has four decades of proven lead­er­ship at both Colfire and An­gos­tu­ra, where she left a lega­cy of health and well­ness in their re­spec­tive in­dus­tries.

Hen­der­son, who will al­so serve as pres­i­dent of the T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA) and the T&T Sand and Beach Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTS­B­GA), said, “It would be re­miss of me not to men­tion my pre­de­ces­sor, Mr Bri­an Lewis, for his un­stint­ing ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to the TTOC/TTC­GA/TTS­B­GA. Noth­ing has gone un­no­ticed. Thanks al­so to every­one who sup­port­ed me through­out my sport­ing and oth­er ca­reers lead­ing to this oc­ca­sion.

“I look for­ward to work­ing with each and every one of you, es­pe­cial­ly the new ex­ec­u­tive board.”

Hen­der­son, who at­tained both an As­so­ciate’s and a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Psy­chol­o­gy from the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T (COSTATT), un­der­stands the needs of be­ing an ath­lete as she has played six sports in her train­ing and com­pe­ti­tion years in­clud­ing track and field, swim­ming, net­ball, cy­cling (track, road and moun­tain bike), triathlon, drag­on boat and the mar­tial art, Wu Shu Kwan.