Satya Tanner is helping to harness reliable, renewable power while generating mindset shifts in the clean energy sector. 

As the CEO and Managing Director for the Australian office of LAUTEC – a Danish consultancy that specialises in project controls, QHSE, Offshore Client Representatives, GIS mapping services and software for renewables – Satya combines her technical expertise with a strong commitment to creating a world we can all thrive in. A regular contributor to events, webinars and publications, she recently penned a paper with Heidi Lee and Steve Blume on, A 2050 retrospective: How Australia thrived in the global shift to clean, resilient energy systems

With her career originating in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), serving the community and making the world a better place formed a strong part of her ethos. Then in the mid 2000s she was introduced to futures thinking tools. “I began to understand that as engineers, we are not only able to solve problems and fix issues. We can also play a big role in shaping the future through the stories and visions we tell.” Engineering was more than technical skills. It was the ability to become wise global citizens with imagination, innovation and vision. 

Previously working in the defence and aerospace sector in Australia and the US, she then spent seven years in Denmark in offshore wind with a short stint in oil and gas. She described her appointment at LAUTEC as “wonderful to take my experience in offshore wind home to Australia and still maintain the connection to Denmark.”  

As a CEO and an engineer, Satya is one of a handful of women in an energy sector C-suite position. It’s her commitment to leadership education that is empowering engineers, particularly women, to advance their STEM careers and break industry moulds. Utilising her background in leadership development, she has some executive coaching clients and teaches a course called “Leadership for Social Change” at a college in the US. She is also working on a digital app for women in technical industries called “Her Toolbox” and has obtained qualifications in helping leaders develop the skills needed for dealing with Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA).  

This is just a shortlist of the contributions that have made Satya a powerful advocate for women in STEM to realise their potential. 
   
“There comes a point in most people’s careers where being good at your job isn’t enough to get promoted. Other factors come into play such understanding power, boundaries, emotional intelligence and soft skills. Therefore, I’m creating a series of courses that help women develop their leadership potential by focusing on common derailers. For example, "Be liked without being a pushover, Be respected without the emotional distance and Achieve goals without being a slave driver.”  
   
It's fitting that she should be helping more women take their careers higher, having spent 16 years as an aeronautical engineer and pilot with the RAAF.  She was the thirteenth woman to become a military pilot in the RAAF after studying aeronautical engineering. After this phenomenal flight, she returned to engineering, feeling it was a platform for more opportunity with project management and leadership roles. During her tenure in the RAAF, she reached the rank of Squadron Leader, supported humanitarian operations after the Bali bombings of 2002 and managed multi-million dollar logistics engineering support programs for C-130 fleets.  
   
After leaving the RAAF she moved to the US where she worked as a program manager in the aerospace industry. However soon a different horizon called – what does an aeronautical engineer do in Denmark? Wind energy. 

“I felt that the energy sector, and in particular renewables, was an excellent way to be a part of something practical that brings energy and economic security to communities, without dependence on imports. The career transition was not entirely easy as I had to take a step down from being an aerospace program manager, to an internal project manager for an engineering department. However, once I had my foot in the door more opportunities came – I was shortly promoted to a senior leadership role.”  
   
Currently, 13 per cent of Australia’s engineers are female. This is a considerable gap when it comes to gender parity and demonstrates the lack of women choosing and advancing in STEM careers. By comparison, Denmark has the highest representation of female engineers at 50.8 per cent.  

Satya would like to see more young women not just enter STEM careers, but advance past levels where they may have previously felt unqualified. 

"Therefore, how we think, flexible work arrangements, fair pathways for career advancement, and softer skills in engineering are all part of attracting more women into the profession. It makes the profession better for everyone, not just women, when we reflect on what in our culture is and isn’t working.” 

Her experiences in Denmark, the US and Australia have given her a keen insight into the national and gender-based strengths and differences across multiple engineering cultures. While technical expertise and innovation is a given, Satya explains it’s the soft skill set that can help engineers step up to C-suite and leadership roles. She cites qualities such as communication, inclusion, teamwork, collaboration, listening, cultural understanding and resolving conflict as keys to advancement. She also explains such traits are often perceived as feminine and a reason why female engineers could thrive in leadership positions, noting that both men and women have, and should develop, their feminine traits too. 

As Satya revealed to the Clean Energy Council, “there is a hyper-rational culture coming from a lot of men who are engineers. This approach is good at finding flaws with an idea, but fails to take the next step of envisioning how to overcome it. By contrast, I find that women’s culture is more nuanced and pre-disposed to listening. I would even say that the Danes are far more innovative in their engineering, partly because they embrace not only the masculine, but also feminine qualities such as listening, collaborating and trusting that if you give an issue deliberate space, solutions to problems always emerge.”  

But what makes a great engineer a great CEO? Satya advises building a holistic skill set that shares the balance of technical, professional, cultural and ethical qualities. 

“An engineering mindset can bring a structured and pragmatic lens to the CEO role especially when the product or service offering is technical in nature. For young engineers, my advice is to start learning about the softer more complex topics such as culture, ethics and conflict resolution. Even if you don’t want to be C-suite, the best engineers at the top of their game communicate well, are pro-active, hold their own power, find pathways out of conflict, and know what a meaningful contribution to society looks like."

Satya is a regular speaker at industry conferences on topics such as offshore wind, energy security, economic security and community resilience via the energy shift. She is trained in futures thinking tools, with a particular focus on volatile uncertain contexts, and teaches leadership in her spare time.  

Satya has a Bachelor of Aeronautical Engineering and a Master of Leadership. She is a Professional Engineer Fellow (FIEAust), Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Fellow of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).