About Felicity Furey
Felicity Furey is an award-winning engineer, entrepreneur, author and international speaker recognised as one of Australia’s leading voices on the future of engineering and leadership.
With 20 years in the engineering industry, she has delivered major infrastructure projects and founded five businesses focused on innovation, education and leadership.
Felicity has won 12 industry awards for her impact and has spoken to more than 33,000 people globally. She is the author of The Future of Engineering: Legacy by Design, a book that challenges engineers and leaders to expand engineering beyond technical problem solving and consider the long-term impact of the systems they design.
She co-founded Power of Engineering, inspiring girls and regional students to pursue engineering, and WeAspire, which has trained more than 11,000 emerging leaders across engineering, infrastructure and construction from 150+ companies.
“Felicity Furey has made a career out of making the impossible, possible”
Awards and Honours
An Engineer who has always asked bigger questions
Felicity’s relationship with engineering began with curiosity - a childhood instinct to invent, problem-solve and understand how things worked.
That instinct carried through her professional career, where she worked as an engineer delivering real projects in complex, high-stakes environments for two decades. But alongside the technical work, she noticed something else: engineering decisions were shaping communities, cultures and lives far beyond the scope of the brief - often without that impact being fully acknowledged.
Engineering, she realised, is not just a technical discipline. It is a socio-technical profession, always in service of people.
That insight has shaped everything she has built since from roads and infrastructure to mentoring the next generation of engineers to founding businesses.
Her love of engineering and her lifelong desire to improve diversity and equality in STEM has spawned a business empire. Felicity founded WeAspire Future Leaders in 2020 to prepare emerging leaders to be confident and ready to lead and increase diversity in leadership. She co-founded Power of Engineering in 2012 a groundbreaking organisation encouraging the next generation to consider careers in engineering through real-world, hands on experiences and opportunities.
Portfolio
After realising the lack of diversity in engineering and wanting to make an impactful change, Felicity co-founded not-for-profit Power of Engineering. The organisation has reached over 15,000 students across Australia through one day events, engineering in a box kits for remote and regional schools and partnerships with industry and universities.
Felicity has raised over $1 million from corporate Australia to support her vision. As a result, 77% of students who were a ‘no’ to engineering before the day change their mind to a ‘yes’ after the event.
In the world of engineering Felicity has worked on some of Australia’s most innovative mega infrastructure projects for the likes of Arup, fortune 500 company AECOM and Brisbane City Council. Felicity has over 12 years experience as a civil engineer and 20 years experience working in the industry.
Felicity was typically appointed to lead complex, special projects with challenging stakeholders, most notably:
Managing two portfolios at Brisbane City Council's Major Infrastructure Projects Office, including a $45 million transport infrastructure project portfolio at just 23 years old and a portfolio of 12 complex bikeway projects.
Project Managing the Sydney Harbour Tunnel Corporation’s Enhanced Asset Management Plan and Computer Control System Upgrade for Arup.
Serving as Director of Industry Partnerships, Engineer in Residence, and Senior Lecturer at Swinburne University to set up an internal consultancy in a world first approach in engineering education.
Learn more about Felicity’s professional career on LinkedIn.
Felicity is the co-founder and CEO of WeAspire. a multi award winning leadership advisory which specialises in delivering transformational people and performance outcomes for managers and leaders in infrastructure and construction where leadership matters, delays cost millions, and errors cost lives. WeAspire does this through unique, experiential initiatives for graduates, first time leaders and experienced leaders.
Felicity and the WeAspire team have been trusted to work directly with 10,899 people from 145+ companies including John Holland, Brisbane Airport, Marinus Link, LMS Energy and Fulton Hogan.
Business Founder and Executive
Felicity has founded five companies including a national not-for-profit charity, an EdTech startup, a consultancy, an affordable housing investment company, and a training and consulting business for leaders in construction and infrastructure. She leverages engineering problem solving and business to create change in engineering and construction, delivering impactful outcomes in complex and uncertain environments.
Building businesses from the ground up, Felicity’s entrepreneurial spirit and strategic acumen have been instrumental in establishing governance structures, responding and adapting to market pressures, generating funding and sales, building teams, and creating and implementing strategic plans.
As a seasoned business leader and board director, Felicity has held multiple C-Suite roles, including Chief Executive Officer of two organizations and Chief Marketing Officer.