Rowena Samarasinhe is a former athlete who is a sports lawyer and commercial sports consultant. Rowena works with some of the largest sporting federations, brands, teams and athletes on the planet but is most passionate about changing perceptions in the industry. Rowena is often not only just the only female in the room, but she is also often the only minority and sometimes also the youngest.
Rowena Samarasinhe is a Partner at niche sports, media, entertainment and technology law firm Level and she also owns her own commercial sports consultancy, GENSport. She specialises in the negotiation and implementation of international sponsorship and broadcast agreements and has worked with some of the largest global sports properties, concluding ground-breaking deals for sports bodies in addition to major endorsement deals with some of the most prolific athletes in the world. Most recently, Rowena has been working on the development of a franchise rugby union tournament which will see the world’s leading male and female players compete annually around the world.
She also sits on a number of sporting boards and until recently was a member of the National Sports Council of Sri Lanka. She is a corporate speaker on inclusive leadership and recently delivered a TEDx talk on the subject of sport and diversity.
As an ex-athlete herself, Rowena is passionate about changing perceptions within the industry and her experience both personally and professionally has given her a unique perspective of sport, from grass roots to high performance level with the consideration of players and athletes themselves remaining at the heart of what she does.
In 2018, Legal 500 included Rowena in their “General Counsel Powerlist” recognizing the most influential and innovative in-house lawyers around the world and subsequently, upon returning to private practice, one of Legal 500’s Next Generation Partners for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
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