Aviation women’s forums focus on leadership and resilience

The advantage of a virtual event was not lost. Instead of a forum limited to those who could meander out to the scheduled site in Dubbo, our future aviation and STEM leaders from around the country and as far away as Malaysia could join in without the added expense of travel – silver lining.

The mission of these current and future leaders was a lofty one: to cultivated ideas on how to transform, support and improve the aviation aerospace and space sectors through collaboration, sharing of experience and interactive discussion.

The highlight was the live panel session, drawing in unique professionals from across the industry. People such as the chief engineer of Boeing Defence Australia, Stephen Hudson, and the chief pilot, owner operator of a GA charter company, Tammy Camilleri. It included Australia’s first space port CEO, Carley Scott; a pilot/engineer in New Mexico, Jill Meyers; an aviation fire fighter, Ebony Simonit; and Marija Jovanovich an RAAF test pilot. Sounds like something inspiring for everyone!.

As you can imagine at a women’s event, the panel of inspiration was predominantly women. We know that seeing someone just like you, creating incredible careers, holding positions of management and taking the role of change-maker and innovator in an industry, creates an ‘I can do that too’ mindset. When an industry is on the cutting edge of AI, technology and science leadership, forums such as this play an integral part in igniting the career path vision and building the confidence of emerging leaders.

The aviation careers speaker also provided awesome tips on applying for industry jobs, as well as career options. WAI Australian Chapter has gone a step further and provide an Aviation Careers Guide as a resource for career advisers at high schools and universities, as well as for individuals who want to join the aviation industry.
For a copy of the Aviation Careers Guide, get in touch: https://waiaustralia.org/about-us/contact-us/

The line up of speakers did not hesitate to tackle some pretty gritty topics. How they overcame personal challenges and built the resilience to keep striving for their goals, rising above the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and reframing them as opportunities, and how their personality traits were just as important as their skill set in establishing careers.

Something that was a constant throughout the day was that no matter the path they took, be that civil, military or space, support, networking and mentoring played a practical and motivational part in every one of our industry leaders’ lives.