ARA Board Member and Chair of the ARA’s Women in Rail Committee, Market Leader Transport for Sydney at GHD, Rebecca Want, shares her insights on the benefits of GHD being involved in the ARA’s leadership and career development initiatives, including the Young Leaders Advisory Board.

GHD is actively involved in the ARA and is committed to participating in opportunities to support the rail industry, including listening and learning from fellow ARA members. 

By Rebecca Want

At GHD, we love to get engaged and involved in our industry associations and so we invited a panel of the Young Leaders Advisory Board from the ARA to inspire us further about their role in industry. 

We were grateful to have the ARA’s Y-LAB members Samiha Najem (Sydney Trains), Lauren Fraser (GHD), Charlotte Roinson (Alstom) and Julian Sharp (CPB) share their experience of engaging in the committees and groups that the ARA facilitates for members.

Here are some of the insights they shared:

• All panel members wanted to connect and contribute to industry 
• A growth mindset of “you get what you give” – when you give and share, you benefit in unimaginable ways
• The benefits of connecting in the ARA to get daily work done better
• That participation in ARA provided an opportunity for personal growth and confidence
• Support from your business is much appreciated in the time commitment and the benefits for businesses is very positive 

The panel was facilitated by GHD’s National Transport Market Leader, Mikel Alonso, and our audience included John Cranley, GHD’s National Rail Manager who are both committed and supportive of GHD’s participation in industry. Rebecca Want is privileged to be a sponsor of the ARA’s Y-LAB, together with Julian Sharp (CPB) and Steve Butcher (JHG). GHD will be presenting at the upcoming ARA’s Rail Freight Conference and is preparing abstracts for the upcoming AusRail Conference to be held on the Gold Coast in November.