Mayi Cruz Blanco is a Cuban born, holding Cuban and Swiss Nationalities. Her journey through sports has afforded her to develop from a competitive athlete to an international executive.

Her experience and business acumen includes: developing global strategies and campaigns, managing global teams and communities, implementing growth portfolios impact initiatives; as well as collaborating with leaders, governments and NGOs.

Mayi is the only Cuban that has done the FIFA Master, afforded by two scholarships from FIFA and the IOC / Olympic Solidarity.

Passionate about sharing knowledge and developing others; Mayi is a featured speaker at international conferences and events. She is also a regular mentor, facilitator and lecturer within educational initiatives.

Her work in the sports industry includes organizations, such as the IOC, World Archery; to FIFA where she has worked for the prior decade; as Global Head of women’s football development.

During her time at FIFA, the growth of the women’s game increased exponentially becoming a core pillar of FIFA's strategy. She oversaw a portfolio of development programmes reaching 190 nations and 000’s of individuals. Key highlights of her achievements at FIFA are: the development of the first FIFA Global Women’s Football survey in 2014; the implementation of the FIFA Live Your Goals campaign reaching 73 countries between 2012-2017. The first ever global FIFA leadership programme for women in football & the organization the FIFA WWC, Live Your Goals Tour Canada 2015.

Besides her role as Global Head of Athletes Programmes @AdeccoGroup; she is a founder of Sport Equity International Foundation, based in The Netherlands and collaborates in projects with THNK – School of Creative Leadership (www.thnk.org), the Football Business Academy (www.the-fba.com) and the ST Gallen University (ccdi-unisg.ch).

An advocate for diversity and inclusion, Mayi believes that gender equality is not the end; but a mean to advance development and business.