During her speech at the conference, held at Tāmaki Makaurau, Ruggiero, who won team gold at Nagano 1998, team silvers at Salt Lake City 2002 and Vancouver 2010 and team bronze at Turin 2006, spoke about the potential of unlocking women’s sport.

Ruggiero spoke in her talk about the value of the women’s sports market, citing how although there was a smaller market there was more fan engagement, and fans were digital savvy and loyal.

Since retiring from ice hockey, Ruggiero has gone on to found sports market research and advisory firm Sports Innovation Lab.

Among the other themes covered on day two of the conference were sport management in a post-pandemic world, leadership, indigenous sport and wellbeing.

Reflecting on the conference so far group chief executive of High Performance Sport New Zealand Raelene Castle said: "The vision to bring together the cricket, rugby, IWG World Conference and FIFA World Cup, has given us a two year platform, and that’s something not everyone gets.

"Events usually start and finish, but we can keep the conversation alive for two years and beyond.

"Unfortunately, many of our women suffer imposter syndrome, and this (conference) is a good reinforcement there are great women doing incredible work all over the world. We all need to stand up and own that."

The third day of the conference is due to feature a series of interactive workshops plus speeches from Kereyn Smith, who served as chief executive of the New Zealand Olympic Committee from 2011 until 2021, and Annamarie Phelps, vice-chairman of the British Olympic Association, on the theme of gender equality for women and girls in sport.