WE ARE ALL LEADERS

Meg Fanning (nee Panozzo) is an infrastructure advisory consultant with a background in civil engineering. She is also a writer, coach and advocate for women and STEM.

Meg has nurtured a lifelong curiosity and passion for learning. She chose the somewhat rare combination of engineering and arts because of a love of maths and physics, while also being called to music, history and languages. Meg thrives at the intersection of the two disciplines, and has consistently engaged with her creativity, love of collaboration  and story-telling to rapidly grow her career in the engineering and infrastructure industry.

Meg started her career in Melbourne in a small infrastructure team before traveling to Sydney to work on major projects in her graduate year. She then spent several years delivering high profile transport infrastructure projects such as the Pacific Highway Upgrade with global companies Cardno (now Stantec) and then Arup.

In 2021 Meg shifted out of  engineering delivery into infrastructure advisory to work at the early planning phase of infrastructure projects. The pivot in her career was driven by an aspiration to help influence decision-making in infrastructure development so that she could help embed positive social, environmental and economic outcomes from the projects she works on. She now works as an Associate Director with professional services firm RPS, where she collaborates with government clients to help shape our nation’s  infrastructure.

After starting in the workforce, Meg  wanted to help other women create thriving careers, and so she started a blog called Her Bold Universe with the vision to document her career in a way that might inspire and empower others. In early 2023, Her Bold Universe was relaunched to focus on empowering emerging leaders in STEM, where Meg offers career coaching and resources to help people thrive in their careers. Meg believes that we each have the potential to become leaders and make a positive impact in the world.

Through her work both as an engineer and advocate for women and STEM Meg has been recognised with multiple awards. In 2020 she was named one of Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers for her work in creating ConnectSTEM at Arup and was also awarded Consult Australia’s 2020 Future Leader Award.