Wilma Shakespear is the director of the Queensland Academy of Sport, a major high-performance center for more than 500 world-class athletes in Australia. Her contributions to the sport of netball include a world championship as a player and two as a coach, as well as pioneering work as the first head coach of netball at the Australian Institute of Sport. In this position Shakespear was the world's first professional coach of an elite netball program. At 26, she was also the youngest national coach ever appointed in Australia.
Shakespear has also made significant contributions to the advancement of women's sports in Australia and throughout the world. She originated the Women's Coaching Development Program at the Australian Institute of Sport and served on the steering committee for the