Through the lens of Leadership – Emma Dade, Jacobs
Through Lens of Leadership
“Leadership means empowering and enabling those around you through your actions, behaviors and attitudes so they can thrive and create meaningful outcomes.”
Emma Dade – Jacobs
Leadership in Infrastructure Sustainability
Emma is passionate about the role of infrastructure in delivering positive ESG outcomes and has been supporting several industry working groups in the development of the IS Rating Tool for almost a decade.
Since being appointed to her current technical leadership role two years ago, she has been working closely with clients and project teams across Australia and New Zealand, providing strategic guidance and direction on sustainability matters and working with them to define their ESG and decarbonization vision, develop roadmaps and plans capable of delivering on their aspirations, and operationalize those plans across their business and projects. She has led the development and integration of sustainability strategies and management plans for projects ranging from small cycleways to large rail upgrades with an incredibly collaborative approach that focuses on upskilling and empowering those around her to take initiative and ownership of achieving sustainability outcomes.
Within the Jacobs business Emma provides technical leadership in the areas of ESG, infrastructure sustainability and decarbonization to our project teams across the region and is a key support for operations management and sales leadership, providing them with insights into trends, practices and technologies re/shaping the industry to help Jacobs’ position and grow its technical capability.
Leadership Lessons
Emma has been a registered Infrastructure Sustainability Accredited Professional for over 8 years. Over that time, her career has evolved quickly due to a clear passion and motivation for helping clients deliver more sustainable outcomes on their projects and a strong personal drive to supporting the career development of other emerging professionals in the sustainability sector.
When asked about leadership lessons learned, Emma will tell you that embedding sustainability into organisations and projects to address the climate crisis is a complex and multifaceted process that requires a combination of technical knowledge, business nous and the ability to influence and lead change. She credits her career achievements to date to an unwavering focus on fostering strong connections with colleagues and professionals at all levels and across businesses and industry, a highly collaborative and consultative approach, and knowing when to make effective and bold decisions.
She also reflects that sustainability is no longer the domain of technical professionals alone – board members and c-suite executives are now expected to understand and take direct action on sustainability and climate risks and opportunities that impact their organisation. This makes being able to communicate clearly and confidently, particularly at an executive level, very important for leaders in this space.
Core Values
Emma has a deep-seated personal belief that the sustainability discipline can drive the mindset and economic shift required to address the climate crisis and redefine how we perceive and measure value within our society, and for her the opportunity to contribute to solving these complex problems and have tangible impact in the world around her is immensely exciting and rewarding.
In her professional life, Emma values the opportunity to collaborate and work with colleagues across a variety disciplines, skillsets and backgrounds, and to build trusted and meaning relationships with clients, teams, stakeholders and industry peers.
She also believes strongly in leveraging her skills and experience to give back to society and volunteering is a prominent part of her life outside of work. She has undertaken a number of roles for Engineers without Borders both within Australia and throughout Southeast Asia with their programs.
Content Contributor
Emma Stanley
emma.stanley@jacobs.com