Department of Transport and Planning: Advancing Gender Equity in Transport

CASE STUDY - DELIVERED IN MY PREVIOUS ROLE AT LEVEL CROSSING REMOVAL PROJECT, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT AND PLANNING

The transport sector has long been characterised by low representation of women, with female participation sitting at just 28%. The Victorian Department of Transport and Planning launched the Women in Transport Strategy 2021–24 to dismantle structural barriers, shift workplace culture and increase access to employment and leadership opportunities for women. The strategy set an ambitious target of 50% female representation, including in senior roles, by end of 2024.

I led two flagship initiatives under this strategy: the Women in Transport Mentoring Program and the Leadership Development Scholarships. For the mentoring program, I redesigned the experience to centre participant voice and individual goals, facilitated large-scale professional development and networking events for up to 600 participants, brought in high-profile guest speakers, and designed a robust monitoring and evaluation framework to capture outcomes and inform continuous improvement.

For the scholarships program, I conducted in-depth interviews with past and current participants to understand their lived experiences and challenges. I used those insights to redesign operational systems, making them more intuitive and supportive, and introduced mentoring, networking and professional development opportunities to provide wraparound support during their studies.

Together, these programs delivered measurable impact: mentoring engagement increased by 235%, 95% of scholarship participants reported career progression as a direct result of the program, emerging women leaders gained visibility across the sector, and talent pipelines were strengthened to support long-term workforce diversity.