Louise Adams

For Louise Adams, the path to engineering began with a childhood fascination and a strong bond with her grandfather. He was an amateur photographer with a passion for bridges, and together they would pore over slide shows from his travels. One day he showed her a bridge in Southeast Asia, with small huts built beneath it. When Louise declared she wanted to live under such a bridge, he gently explained that every year, the river would overflow and wipe away the homes. She asked him what she would need to become to fix it. His answer was a civil engineer.

Louise grew up in Mount Gambier, South Australia, and moved to Adelaide to begin her studies into civil engineering. Drawn to UniSA’s practical approach, she embraced hands-on learning and the close-knit campus community. She graduated with the technical skills needed to put her dream, using engineering as a tool to improve lives, into action.

Her career has taken her around the world. She has worked in South America, fixing infrastructure and supporting communities after devastating floods in Guyana; in the Middle East, navigating complex projects in Pakistan, Iran, and the UAE; and across Asia, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Louise found working on these projects rewarding, but the opportunity to immerse herself in new cultures and see the immediate impact of her work was just as uplifting.

Today, Louise is Group Chief Executive Officer of Aurecon, one of the AsiaPacific’s leading engineering and infrastructure advisory firms. She leads approximately 7,500 people in 31 locations working to tackle some of our most urgent challenges including climate change, urbanisation, and population growth.

As a female leader in a maledominated field, Louise is deeply committed to paving the way for others. Seeing herself as a minority at university ignited her drive to support young women and girls and become a role model. She has spent much of her career mentoring and inspiring young women to succeed in engineering, determined to show that women can thrive at the highest levels in the profession.

Her philosophy on leadership is simple but powerful: give people something to believe in, someone to believe in, and someone who believes in them. Those words reflect not just how she leads, but who she is; a woman who still sees engineering as a means to build a better world.

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