MARY WITTENBERG
Bridging the gap
Mary Wittenberg, the president of EF Education-Nippo, is the most senior female executive in the men’s WorldTour. She tells Procycling about her journey into cycling, her background as an elite runner and her plans to make the sport bigger
Writer Edward Pickering
//Ilustration David Despau
When a corporate headhunter suggested to Mary Wittenberg that she go and talk to the people at the Boston headquarters of a firm which specialised in language and cultural education and exchange, it didn’t sound like what she was looking for. Sports executive Wittenberg, the former race director of the New York marathon, had been on a few months’ sabbatical after leaving her most recent job at Virgin Sport and was wondering what to do next. All she knew, as she had known almost her entire working life, was that she wanted to work in sport. She had never heard of EF Education First, but the combination of Boston, education and travel was interesting enough to her that she went anyway. The headhunter warned her not to say she was just going to see what happened, but that was what she was thinking.
In Boston she met with Eddie Hult, the chief exec of EF North America and son of EF’s founder Bertil Hult, and they talked about running and cycling. For all Wittenberg knew, she could have ended up running a travel business - Eddie’s modus operandi is to get to know people first and then work out what they can do for the company.
A short while later, Eddie called and said, “Why don’t you come and run the bike team?”
And that’s how Mary Wittenberg became the most senior female in the men’s WorldTour. She is EF Education-Nippo’s president, responsible for liaising between the company and the team staff and for working as a partner with team CEO Jonathan Vaughters.