Jessie Brouwers

Jessie Brouwers is a voluntary research fellow at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and works at the Flemish Tennis Federation (Tennis Vlaanderen) in the department of club development. She coordinates various projects including Tennis @ School, Kids Toer, Start to Tennis, Quality Club and Padel. Additionally, she examines and reports the trends of memberships, competition participation, coach education, etc. of clubs while providing clubs with benchmark data.

Jessie Brouwers graduated in 2009 at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium with a Masters in Physical Education and Movement Sciences (specialising in sports management) with the highest distinction. In her master’s thesis she examined talent identification processes based on youth tournaments in tennis. After graduating Jessie worked for six months as a research assistant and assistant for the sport management and marketing course. In January 2010 she moved to Australia to start a PhD about the elite sport policies and player development pathways in tennis. During her PhD Jessie worked as a research assistant and casual teaching fellow in a sport tourism course. In 2016 Jessie obtained her PhD (title: The role of elite sport policies, pathways and inter-organisational relationships in developing elite tennis players) at Griffith University (Queensland, Australia).

Jessie published her work in diverse peer reviewed journals (e.g., Sport Management Review, European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Sport Management) and co-authored various book chapters. She also presented her research at international conferences (e.g., Conference of the European Association of Sports Management). Additionally to her academic background, Jessie worked as a tennis coach in Belgium, England, Australia and Germany.