Experience & Activities

Dr Mary Ann Dove is a leading authority on the role of coaches and parents in encouraging athletes to achieve their own potential in sport. Her focus is on creating person-centric sporting environments through developing emotional intelligence, leadership and communication skills in coaches and educating parents in the challenges of the sporting landscape. She is a regular educator, speaker, writer and consultant at schools, clubs, sporting federations and conferences.

Although she has worked from developmental to the elite levels across a wide variety of sports, her particular expertise is in cricket and field hockey. Other experience includes talent development, transformation challenges, team effectiveness, mental performance coaching, player development and welfare, and team management.

Mary Ann has a PhD from the University of Cape Town where her research resulted in a socio-ecological framework of cricket talent development in diverse societies. In addition, she has executive coaching and psychology qualifications as well as facilitation, lecturing and coaching experience. She is still a very active, but less competitive sportswoman including running, tennis and in 2009 successfully summited Mt Kilimanjaro. And in her spare time she is a mother to her grown-up son and daughter.