Emerging Leaders Spotlight: Jamie-Lee Owen and holding the door open
Jamie-Lee Owen has been part of the Emerging Leaders story almost from the beginning. Joining the inaugural cohort in 2021, she went on to spend several years helping to shape the program itself – serving on the committee and later as Chair.
She has now graduated from the program, but her involvement certainly hasn’t ended there. In 2026, Jamie-Lee returned to review the program, speaking with the current cohort and Chairs about what had worked, where it could grow and what its next chapter could look like. She then put forward a new structure that helped shape the Emerging Leaders Program as it exists today.
When Jamie-Lee first joined Emerging Leaders, she was looking for an opportunity to develop, build her profile and feel more firmly embedded in a career she hadn’t necessarily planned for. With a university education unrelated to where she found herself professionally, Jamie-Lee admits she sometimes struggled to feel that she deserved to be doing the work she was doing.
“If you’ve heard me speak on career development and young professionals before, you’ll know I have a chip on my shoulder about not being a technical expert,” she says. “I knew that getting involved in something like the Emerging Leaders was going to give me opportunities to develop in a visible way that would further embed me in this career.”
From Emerging Leader to champion
What Jamie-Lee didn’t anticipate was just how invested she would become in the development of the people coming behind her. She describes one of the biggest things she gained from the program as a “really strong and deep passion” for emerging and early-career professionals – and for developing the kind of future leaders the public transport industry needs.
“There’s a lot of ‘it’s always been done this way’ mentality in public transport, and it’s just not practical any longer to continue that way of thinking.”
For Jamie-Lee, responding to the challenges facing our communities and the planet will require new approaches to problem solving, coalition building and leadership. It will also require different kinds of leaders, bringing greater diversity in backgrounds, experience and ways of thinking. As she puts it: “Our organisations and our leadership should look like the communities they serve.”
Building a community
Over the years, Emerging Leaders has also given Jamie-Lee something much more personal: a community. With participants spread across Australia and New Zealand, the opportunities to come together at seminars and PTAANZ conferences have become some of her favourite memories.
“It’s like having built-in best friends on top of the best peers you could ask for when you’re at these events,” she says. “It’s like the nerdier version of a summer camp.”
But some of the experiences that have meant the most have come from being able to create opportunities for others. During her time as Chair, Jamie-Lee helped review applications for the annual young professionals scholarship co-sponsored by UITP and Transit Systems. Impressed by the calibre of applicants but able to award only two scholarships, she offered the remaining applicants an optional mentoring session with her.
She wasn’t sure anyone would take her up on it, but many did. “It was a big swing for me but a bigger swing for them to trust that I had something of value to offer.”
For Jamie-Lee, those moments – mentoring someone, connecting them with another person in the industry or encouraging them to put themselves forward – have become some of the most rewarding parts of her Emerging Leaders experience.
From the first cohort to shaping the next
Five years after joining that inaugural cohort, Jamie-Lee found herself helping to answer a much bigger question: what should Emerging Leaders look like for the people coming next?
In 2026, she was invited back to review the program and develop a new structure for its next chapter. An important part of that process was going back to the people who knew the program best, engaging with the current cohort and Chairs to understand what was working, what participants valued and where there was room to grow.
The resulting structure helped inform the program new Emerging Leaders are applying to today, with mentoring from senior industry leaders, professional development opportunities, greater involvement in PTAANZ conferences and a trans-Tasman community connecting emerging professionals across Australia and New Zealand.
It’s also a fitting continuation of something Jamie-Lee says the program fundamentally changed in her: the kind of leader she wants to be.
“I’ve stopped trying to mould myself into the type of leader I thought I had to be because that’s what I was shown in my early career.”
Instead, she now goes out of her way to connect people across the industry and put emerging professionals forward for opportunities – particularly the ones they don’t think they’re ready for. Her view on that is simple: “There’s also no such thing as ready!”
Holding the door open
For anyone considering applying to Emerging Leaders, Jamie-Lee’s advice is emphatic: do it.
“If you’re a young or emerging leader and you ever have a passing thought of applying for something – you have to jump on it. It doesn’t matter if you feel ready, it doesn’t even matter if you ultimately get that specific thing. Being open to opportunities and just taking the next steps along the way is how doors open up to you.”
And for those already established in the industry, she has an equally important challenge: don’t just recognise emerging talent. Act on it. Put someone’s name forward, encourage them to apply, tell them when they’ve done something well and create opportunities for them to step into.
“This is what sponsoring, championing and advocating others looks like.”
Jamie-Lee joined the first Emerging Leaders cohort looking for opportunities to establish herself in the industry. Five years later, she has helped shape the program that will create those opportunities for the people coming next. And despite having officially graduated, she has no intention of stopping.
“I will never stop championing emerging professionals, no matter how emerged I get.”
After all, as Jamie-Lee puts it:
“The people that go through the Emerging Leaders Program today are our C-suite, our Board members, our policy and decision-makers of tomorrow.”