Adidas’ Ayesha Martin and P&G’s Brent Miller to Co-Chair Athlete Ally Action Awards
New York, New York (October 12, 2021) – Today, Athlete Ally announced that Ayesha Martin (she/her), Senior Director, Communities & Social Impact at adidas and Brent Miller (he/him), Senior Director, Global LGBTQ+ Equality Program Leader at Procter & Gamble, will co-chair the upcoming Seventh Annual Athlete Ally Action Awards. Athlete Ally is a nonprofit organization focused on fostering inclusive athletic environments and mobilizing the athletic community to champion LGBTQI+ equality.
The awards ceremony, which will also commemorate Athlete Ally’s 10 year anniversary, will take place virtually with interactive breakout sessions and a live emcee on October 26th at 7:30pm EST, and will honor Olympic gold medalist and Athlete Ally Ambassador Quinn the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, and Athlete Ally’s Washington University in St. Louis Campus Chapter.
Entrepreneurially spirited with a passion for creating meaningful change through social impact at the intersection of IRL and URL for generation NOW, Ayesha joined adidas in 2014 and has spent time in different functions within the business from the newsroom network, to brand strategy and business development for Women’s, Global Purpose and most recently leading the Communities & Impact team in North America. A recent MA graduate in Digital Management, Ayesha hopes to continue fueling the creation and realization of an innovation vision for adidas anchored in purpose, communities and culture.
“Athletes turn to sport for so much more than the game itself – teams can create community, support, encouragement and safe spaces,” said Martin. “Athlete Ally is an incredibly important partner in providing access to sport for all, and I am honored to be a co-chair for this year’s Action Awards.”
Brent Miller is Senior Director for Global LGBTQ+ Equality at Procter & Gamble. He is a pioneer in using the voice of brands and companies to drive the authentic and accurate portrayal of the LGBTQ+ community.
He is the Co-Founder of Can’t Cancel Pride: A COVID-19 Benefit for LGBTQ+ people in need and the Executive Producer of award-winning short films documenting the LGBTQ+ experience inside the workplace including The Words Matter, Out of the Shadows and They Will See You—which earned Miler his first GLAAD Media Award nomination in 2021. In addition, he is behind breakthrough LGBTQ+ campaigns including Head & Shoulders “Shoulders of Greatness” with LGBTQ+ Olympian Gus Kenworthy – the first TV commercial to ever feature the Pride flag, Pantene’s “BeautifuLGBTQ+” and most recently P&G’s “The Pause”. Miller is a 1995 graduate of Findlay High School and received his undergraduate degree in Speech Communication from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
“The LGBTQ+ community deserves to be seen and celebrated in every area of society, including sports,” said Miller. “I’m so proud of our work together to lift up the stories of LGBTQ+ athletes and push for more inclusive athletic environments. It’s an honor to co-chair the Athlete Ally Action Awards.”
“We’re incredibly honored to have Ayesha and Brent as the co-chairs for this year’s Athlete Ally Action Awards, especially as we celebrate 10 years of Athlete Ally,” said Hudson Taylor, Executive Director of Athlete Ally. “Ayesha and Brent have been trusted and invaluable partners in our work to make sports safe, welcome and inclusive for all.”
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About Athlete Ally and the Action Awards
Athlete Ally believes sport will change the world when it welcomes and empowers all people. As a leading national nonprofit working at the intersection of sport and LGBTQI+ equality, Athlete Ally works to end the structural and systemic oppression that isolates, excludes and endangers LGBTQI+ people in sport. We educate individuals and institutions to understand obstacles to inclusion for LGBTQI+ people and how they can build an inclusive culture within their athletic communities. We work to ensure sport governing bodies, teams and leagues adopt policies that reflect the diversity of their constituents. We incubate athlete activism to advance LGBTQI+ equality in and through sport.
The Seventh Annual Athlete Ally Action awards are made possible due to generous support from the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Soccer, TransPerfect, The Coca-Cola Company, Citi, Dow, Gatorade, RenaissanceRe and the United States Tennis Association (USTA), in addition to individual supporters and other corporate support.