Meet the Founders!
With a passion for pickleball and a background deeply rooted in sports, our founders came together with the common goal of ensuring that newest sport on the block has a platform to ensure women have equitable representation in an environment that encourages diversity, and unites women through sports because we believe we are #GreaterTogether.
WIPA was founded by Rachel Hong, who comes from a background in professional tennis and who began playing pickleball several years ago. As Rachel’s passion for playing recreational pickleball catapulted her into pickleball’s senior professional events, it became clear to her that the sport would ultimately need a mechanism in place to support the women who were choosing professional pickleball as a career. Rachel drew upon her experience working alongside Kobe Bryant in fighting for equitable pay in women’s sports and collaborated with some of pickleball’s top ranked players to create the framework of the WIPA. From there, Rachel brought together a team of Allison Galer and Chiney Ogwumike, alongside women from professional pickleball, professional basketball and from other channels in professional sports to create an organization that will ensure diversity, inclusion and equitable pay for the women in pickleball.
Chiney Ogwumike is a 2-Time WNBA All-Star for the Los Angeles Sparks and a full-time, multi-platform ESPN commentator and NBA analyst. Chiney stars on ESPN daily on ESPN’s NBA Today and weekly on NBA Countdown, and stars on the court as a forward for the Sparks. In August 2020, she became the first Black woman to host a national, daily sports-talk radio show. The 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 honoree also holds the title of Executive Producer, producing an ESPN Films documentary “144” on the 2020 WNBA season. The 1st overall pick in the 2014 WNBA Draft from Stanford University, Chiney Ogwumike was the 2014 WNBA Rookie of the year and is a 2-Time WNBA All-Star (2014, 2018). Chiney is a huge pickleball player and advocate, and knows how to help build equity and opportunity for women in sports, particularly in her experience as the vice president of the WNBA Players’ Association (WNBPA), as well as helping pioneer the path for current professional athletes to have full-time broadcasting roles.
Since starting her own sports agency at age 22, Allison Galer has climbed to the top of her field. After receiving her undergraduate degree from Brown University, she launched her agency Disrupt the Game, an agency representing women’s athletes, in April of 2012. She was admitted to the California State Bar after getting her law degree at UCLA (which she attended full-time while in the beginning stages of Disrupt the Game) and is a licensed WNBA, talent, and FIBA agent. Allison represents superstar women’s athletes including Naismith Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie, 2-Time WNBA All-Star and ESPN NBA Analyst Chiney Ogwumike, and USWNT and NWSL’s Portland Thorns star Crystal Dunn, amongst others. Allison got into playing pickleball during the pandemic and is driven to help build the women of pickleball up, the same way she and her clients have worked together to build up the women in basketball and soccer.