Felicity Furey
Engineer, social entrepreneur, leader in diversity
Profile
An award-winning business leader, engineer and entrepreneur, Felicity Furey has made a career out of making the ‘impossible’, possible.
Named one of AFR’s 100 Women of Influence by age 26 and Boss Magazine’s Young Executive of The Year, Felicity has led multi-million dollar engineering projects across Australia, founded several successful businesses including WeAspire and Power of Engineering and secured partnerships with the likes of Qantas, Toyota and Energy Australia to bring her vision to life.
Felicity helps find hidden leadership talent, mentors high-performing teams and equips current and emerging leaders across every industry with the skills they need to make an impact and drive meaningful change. Felicity is the CEO of WeAspire and undertaking a Ph.D. in emerging leadership.
Current Work
An inspirational leader and in-demand speaker, Felicity’s engineering mindset is primed to help leaders and teams reignite performance, reframe challenges as opportunities and redefine what’s possible in the future of business and leadership.
From BOSS Magazine’s Young Executive of The Year to being one of Westpac AFR’s 100 Women of Influence and the Director of four businesses, Felicity has made a career out of making the ‘impossible’ possible.
In the world of engineering, Felicity skyrocketed to the top to lead some of Australia’s most innovative mega infrastructure projects for the likes of Arup, fortune 500 company AECOM and Brisbane City Council, where she delivered a $45 million dollar transport infrastructure project portfolio at just 23 years-of-age.
One of just twelve women in her first engineering class of 120, Felicity remains committed to fueling diversity across all industries by equipping current and emerging leaders from all backgrounds with the skills and tools to make an impact. Felicity’s businesses, WeAspire and Power of Engineering along with partnerships with Qantas, Boeing, Toyota, Telstra, Origin and Energy Australia have powered her mission to help more people ignite their leadership and potential in STEM careers and spark meaningful change.
Felicity takes to the stage to share her inspiring stories and insights and has done so with over 25,000 current and future leaders across Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the United States. She’s secured over $1.5 million in funding for her own businesses, including scarce angel investment funding, and mentored leaders in business, finance, engineering and tech.
Felicity is on a mission to transform leadership and foster intergenerational collaboration. As the co-founder and CEO of WeAspire, she aims to train 1 million emerging leaders to ‘do the impossible’ and become professional, diverse and global leaders by 2030.
Felicity has been featured in major press outlets including the Australian Financial Review, ABC News, Sky News, and the Australian Newspaper.
Media
Feedback
Felicity has regularly been invited to be the keynote speaker at events and panels run by the Foundation for Young Australians. We have found her to be a captivating, imaginative and powerful communicator whose story and points of view resonate deeply with the young people in our community. FYA considers her a role model for young women pursuing careers in STEM and firmly support her work in promoting gender equality in engineering and mathematics. She is a delight to work with and we fully endorse her as a presenter that will both inform and inspire.
Ford Australia invited Felicity to speak at our recent International Women’s Day event. Her presentation about how she started her social enterprises in the STEAM space were inspiring and provided positive energy to a room of local high school girls and Ford employees. Alongside her personal stories of success she gave the audience an informative, engaging and fresh perspective on what it means to be 'An Engineer' in the modern world. Thank you Felicity!
I requested Felicity speak at the Australian German Business Chamber of Commerce Summit about the future of STEM. Felicity presented on stage with C-suite executives from leading Australian and German companies. Felicity was highly impressive, inspiring and demonstrated leadership with practical examples for business leaders to prepare for the future of STEM. I applaud her for the impact she is having to engage young people in STEM and the difference she is making.
The Mathematical Association of Victoria has invited Felicity to speak at and MC a number of events across mathematics education and STEM. We love having Felicity work with us, as she is an engaging presenter who uses personal stories and real-life contexts to engage the audience. Felicity's natural style is highly professional, engaging, and informative. She prepares thoroughly to ensure she understands the audience, and can deliver a truly valuable experience.
Felicity Furey was a wonderful speaker, down to earth and easy to work with. She had a strong message of self-learning and perseverance. Her encouragement of more girls to pursue maths and engineering resonated and our Kumon Instructors and families loved her.
I was so insanely impressed with your insight and ideas today and wanted to let you know! Your message of being bold and courageous, and viewing challenges as an opportunity to clarify my values was really powerful - I often feel dismayed and impatient with slow change and insufficient progress. But you’ve inspired me to consider engineering! Another one converted...
Felicity really connected with the audience. She changed the perception of engineering for young women and some have now changed their career direction. Felicity is amazing!
