THE Australasian Railway Association has appointed four new members to its Young Leaders Advisory Board and two reserve members. The new appointees are:
- Jane Gillespie, senior consultant of Arup
- Josh Steed, team lead of SNC Lavalin
- Melanie Bowden, area manager of CPB Contractors
- Alexander Davies, project manager of the Australian Rail Track Corporation.
Two reserve members have been appointed: Tahni Littlejohn, systems analyst manager of Transport Canberra and City Services and Karthik Krishna Kumar, project manager of Bombardier.
The new appointments join the following four continuing Y-LAB members:
- Liam O’Shannessy, general manager commercial, Major Projects of Downer
- Jessica Ghaleb, engineer – track and civil of Jacobs
- Neysa Arland, control communications manager of Transdev
- Abdul Jamal, interface manager, Waterloo Station of John Holland.
The eight person Y-LAB provides advice and proposals to the ARA board to better harness the ideas of young workers, provide a voice for and champion the industry’s younger demographic.
“I’m delighted to see the second generation of Y-LAB appointed,” said ARA chair and acting CEO Danny Broad.
“The Inaugural Y-LAB made a big impact last year, giving us some clear direction on how to attract a younger workforce, participating in the ARA Board’s Strategy Day to develop our 2019-24 strategic plan and many other key contributions.”
The first meeting of Y-LAB for 2020 is to take place on 3 March in Sydney, hosted by Arup. Y-LAB is supported by ARA Board members; Julian Sharp of CPB Contractors, Anna Squire of Arup and Leah Waymark of Metro Trains Australia.