The AIRAH Awards 2021 winners will be revealed at three-course gala dinner slated for Thursday, February 17 in Sydney.
Three finalists are competing for the coveted Future Leader gong, which is sponsored by A.G. Coombs. The finalists are Alyce Wilson, Affil.AIRAH; Iain Stewart, Affil.AIRAH; and Malik Muhammad Awais, Affil.AIRAH.
The trio of tyros are pictured left to right in the image above.
This award recognises emerging leaders in any facet of the HVAC&R industry, and may include engineers, designers and drafters, project managers and supervisors, tradespeople, commissioning and maintenance technicians, technical sales people and other industry participants.
Wilson joined the HydroChem New South Wales administration team at the start of 2018. Shortly afterwards, her leadership qualities saw her promoted to NSW administration manager.
It was a pivotal moment for the NSW water treatment industry. The state government was in the throes of making significant regulatory changes and Wilson was a key figure in HydroChem’s service team, leading the administration process amendments in line with the new laws. She supported the sales team and aided their transition in addition to her own reports, and was a key manager in leading the wider NSW team through a challenging time.
As co-founder and CEO of Exergenics, Stewart has demonstrated strong leadership skills, developing his company from a start-up to a firm that now boasts considerable personnel. He has shown a passion for improving efficiency across the built environment, and has been involved in numerous industry mentoring roles. Stewart is also a champion of the value in data-driven building optimisation as a tool to address climate change.
Stewart provides mentoring through the University of Melbourne Department of Engineering, and has been actively involved with the Bright Sparks/Clean Energy Crew, with the goal of empowering young people to be active participants in a clean energy future.
As operations manager at Johnson Controls, Awais is responsible for customer success across Australia and New Zealand. As the company moves through its digital transformation, he has been leading the change.
Awais so far has trained more than 15 digital champions across Australia and New Zealand. He prepared and created training material and, after the conclusion of training, continues to provide support to the team. He has initiated a training program with Johnson Controls’ global training team to customise a program that suits Australia. Awais is also involved in the development of the company’s graduate engineer program.
AIRAH’s Future Leader award is open to any individual who is a member of AIRAH and actively engaged in the HVAC&R industry. The nominee must have been nominated by a third party and have been aged 35 years or under as of December 31, 2020.