Deanna is a visionary leader and staunch advocate for women's sports, who continues to shape the landscape of Canadian soccer today. Her strong passion, strategic acumen, and dedication have propelled her to the forefront of the movement to establish a professional women's soccer league in Canada.

Deanna's professional journey in finance led her to Coril Holdings Ltd., a global investment company. Her rise within the organization was swift, progressing from Chief Financial Officer to Executive Vice President and ultimately President and CEO. Despite her career successes within the corridors of the corporate world, Deanna's dedication extends beyond balance sheets; it is rooted in her commitment to fostering equitable opportunities within the realm of professional sports, particularly for young women.

As Chair of Foothills Sports & Entertainment, Deanna blends her business acumen with her passion for sports, envisioning a future where professional soccer in Canada excels with diversity and inclusivity. Under her leadership, Foothills Sports & Entertainment has become a driving force behind this vision.

The dream of establishing a women's professional soccer league in Canada is steadily becoming a reality. As Deanna and her dedicated team of volunteers continue to break barriers, they are pioneering a movement and crafting a narrative of empowerment that will inspire lives and unite communities.  Our Time is Now!

Honoured to be the first CEO of the Calgary Wild Women’s Football Club, Lara Murphy was born and raised in New Brunswick where she began playing soccer locally at six years old. Lara followed an athlete development pathway that led to a varsity career at Mount Allison University while earning a Bachand of Arts degree. She then played in Europe and North America. Experiences in soccer have taught her to continue to rise up over and over again and have introduced her to lifelong friends which makes her involvement with the Calgary Wild so meaningful.

Lara also has a history of successful start-ups that have fed her entrepreneurial and compassionate spirit. She is the owner of Calgary’s Ryan Murphy Construction (RMC), the only female-owned commercial construction firm in the city, where she and her team manage multi-million-dollar projects in corporate, commercial, health care and residential construction. RMC prides itself on being a diverse supplier advocating for inclusivity, authenticity, and supporting the underserved in our community and mentoring youth. Lara has educated herself further in inclusivity issues by participating in courses including Indigenous Studies, governance and completing the Diversity Inclusion Certificate at CCDI Consulting in order to more conscientiously drive change in the construction industry and Calgary’s business community.  

She regularly gives talks about leadership, entrepreneurship, the construction industry and business, and outside of work, Murphy loves working with her community. Lara was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal in 2022 for community work and advocating for equity, inclusivity and authenticity, and supporting younger entrepreneurs through her service on the Boards of YW Calgary, SAIT, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, and the Calgary Airport Authority.

DID YOU KNOW
Lara has been married for 12 years, and in her spare time, loves to travel, ski, garden, read, photography and enjoys Calgary’s famed river path…She lives for the dramatic goal celebrations on a soccer pitch and can’t wait to see little girls playing recreational soccer attend their first Calgary Wild FC game and discover their new heroes.

FAVOURITE QUOTE
"The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you're very courageous: be strong, be extremely kind, and above all be humble."  (Serena Williams)

Lisa Oldridge is part of Calgary Wild FC’s leadership team where she is driven to make a positive impact with her infectious passion for soccer on the city and its youth as the first chief financial and operating officer for the Calgary Wild FC. 

Lisa is a seasoned corporate director with expertise in strategy, finance, governance, capital markets and business. After many years in the equity capital markets, she spent the last decade of her career advising boards, founders, and venture capital funds, most recently with Fulcrum Advisors and Ozone Advisory Group Inc. Lisa was a member of the team that launched The51’s first venture capital fund, and continues to serve as a mentor for Movement51’s Founder Lab.

Her earlier career includes 15 years in the capital markets where she held senior roles on both the buy- and sell-sides in private wealth, portfolio management, and institutional equity sales and research. She has spent 20 years as a corporate director. She has also served on many Boards and advisory groups throughout the city including: Calgary Airport Authority; Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund; 360 Energy Liability Management Ltd.; and the ICD Calgary Chapter Executive.

DID YOU KNOW
Lisa was born in Newcastle General Hospital, just over a mile away from St. James Park, home of Newcastle United FC. She understood early on how soccer could ignite a community, hearing the roars of the crowd from her Grandad’s flat down the street from the stadium. …She can’t wait to watch the crowd on game day enoying their first pro women’s match in Calgary with the amazing Wild FC on the pitch and a cold beer in her hand…the only woman in a house of athletic males (hubby, three teens and Gord the dog), Lisa doesn’t run as fast as she did on the varsity track team but is an enthusiastic tennis player, enjoys being active outside backpacking, trail running, mountain biiking, hiking, cross-country skiing.

FAVOURITE QUOTE
“She nursed a small mad hope.” (Vladimir Nabokov)