Here’s how to foster agile leadership practices that enable swift organisational adaptation and responsiveness.
Australia’s energy transition is happening rapidly. In 2022, renewables contributed 36 per cent to Australia’s electricity supply, up from 3 per cent in 2021. This transition requires significant infrastructure investment – in technologies such as battery storage and hybrid solutions – to shift from fossil fuels to renewables while ensuring a stable energy supply.
Drawn to the shifting landscape of Australia’s energy future, Allyson Woodford stepped into the role as General Manager of Engineering and Planning at APA Group.
“I’ve spent my whole career in energy, particularly transport fuels, which have a limited life going forward,” she said. “APA’s active role in infrastructure investments, vital to Australia’s energy transition, made it an ideal next step for me.”
Recognising the critical role engineers play in steering Australia’s transition towards a sustainable future, Woodford has embraced several leadership development opportunities.
Drawing on her experience leading a team of up to 50 engineers – each with their own reports – she explains how effective leadership doesn’t just happen, it’s intentionally cultivated.
Championing diversity at every level
A diverse workforce boosts innovation, enabling more comprehensive solutions and effective strategies. But women make up only 13 per cent of the Australian engineering workforce. At APA, leaders are honed via a gender balanced approach through development programs such as the Ignite Talent Program – which gives high-performing or high-potential leaders exposure to strategic thinking, equipping them with the tools and experiences to accelerate their careers.
“There’s an equal number of men and women participating in the program,” Woodford said. “It helped me meet a great bunch of leaders coming through, and understand who I should be looking to bring into my team to help strengthen what we’re working on.”
In 2024, more than 30 emerging leaders completed Ignite, with a strong net promoter score of 73 per cent.
When Woodford went through the program, her cohort was given the challenge of attracting and retaining more women.
“The purpose was to move the needle on diversity and inclusion at APA,” she said. “It gave me exposure to a real-life strategic challenge that senior leadership face.”
The five teams came up with a number of different initiatives to improve inclusion at APA.
“We work with the Australian Pipeline and Gas Association, who has a female leadership program we’ve put many women through – giving them exposure to other female leaders outside the business,” Woodford said.
The organisation has a particular focus on gender diversity.
“Our company has increased gender representation of women with our ELT now 50 per cent women, while in 2024, our graduate and internship program intakes were 63 per cent women and our apprenticeship intake was 44 per cent women.”
This inclusive mindset has also significantly transformed the organisation’s culture.
“We saw a jump in one year from 24 per cent to 40 per cent of men saying that they had caregiving responsibilities after taking steps to remove ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer from parental leave – providing equivalent access for both men and women,” she said.
Building networks for leadership success
After a career switch, participation in APA’s executive development programs, such as Elevate, an Executive Leadership Succession Development Program, significantly impacted Woodford’s professional journey.
The 12-month program, which first ran in 2023-24, provided clarity around her strengths, weaknesses, and necessary growth areas, while also helping her build an essential internal network.
Because the Elevate program is cross functional, it allows participants to work with heads of other departments, such as general managers from the energy solutions commercial, government and finance teams.
“The program gave me a broader view of the challenges facing APA and helped me build a stronger network quickly, which is important for career growth.”
Designing a career trajectory
A big part of Woodford’s success has been the drive to spearhead her own growth trajectory.
APA is reshaping career development by evolving its “Lead Your Development” program, placing greater emphasis on individual strengths and career aspirations.
Currently, 116 frontline leaders are participating in a nine-month development journey. The initiative will continue to expand, welcoming an additional 169 leaders into the 2025 cohort.
“My role in Lead Your Development has been helping my managers, their team leaders, and their people get the best out of the process with the individuals they work with,” Woodford said.
“I host an extended leaders development forum every month with all the people leaders in my team, and we focus on leadership through communication styles and what people’s strengths and weaknesses are to help set them up for success leading their people.”
Participants in the program benefit from detailed self-assessment tools, targeted skill-building exercises and personalised coaching sessions. These activities help with the development of greater self-awareness and clarity regarding career trajectories, enhancing participants’ ability to contribute meaningfully to APA’s mission.
“Understanding someone’s career aspirations gives you the opportunity to help them develop in a particular role,” she said. “That means I can listen out for opportunities that are popping up, such as a secondment or an opportunity to lead a program.”
Without allowing employees to align career growth with individual strengths and goals, there’s a risk of “losing good people”.
“If you’re not helping people grow as individuals, and particularly as leaders, they will very quickly become disengaged,” Woodford said. “There’s no point trying to develop someone’s skill set in an area they’re not interested in. It’s not going to be valuable for them and it’s not going to be valuable for us.”
From Woodford’s perspective, organisations that don’t invest in leadership are missing a huge opportunity.
“The times ahead are uncertain; the energy transition is not a recipe we can just follow,” she said. “Our business is an AXS listed company and has investors, customers, lenders, and government stakeholders, so making sure our leadership is best equipped to deal with future possibilities is vital.”
When there’s strong capable leadership at individual, interpersonal and intrapersonal levels, a business can respond to challenges and changing directions in a confident, measured manner.
“We want to be intentional about where we’re going and have our leaders respond in a way that sets the company and customer up for success in the long term, which you can only do by looking after your people.”
For more information about careers and life at APA, go to: https://www.apa.com.au/careers/life-at-apa
There’s a deep irony threading through this article.
While Allyson Woodford’s leadership journey and APA Group’s investment in professional development are laudable from a corporate HR perspective, we can’t ignore the elephant in the room: APA is a fossil gas infrastructure company trying to rebrand as part of the clean energy transition. And it’s not quite working.
Despite the language of innovation, agility, and diversity, APA’s core business—transporting and enabling the combustion of fossil fuels—remains fossil-intensive. It’s jarring to read about leadership agility and a “rapid energy transition” while the company’s pipelines continue to lock in carbon emissions for decades.
And let’s be clear: gas is not a transition fuel. It’s a delaying tactic. At a time when battery storage, electrification, and demand-side innovation are rapidly scaling, APA’s emphasis on leadership programs feels like PR gloss over a fundamentally outdated business model.
We’re told 36% of Australia’s electricity came from renewables in 2022, up from 3% in 2021 (though that stat looks highly suspect—likely a typo or misrepresentation). But what’s APA’s role in this shift? There’s little evidence here that APA is moving decisively away from fossil gas. “Hybrid solutions” and vague references to “infrastructure investment” don’t cut it.
Woodford’s statement that transport fuels have “a limited life going forward” is true—and the same applies to gas infrastructure. If APA were serious about the energy transition, we’d see real capital reallocation toward zero-carbon assets, not just diversity stats and internal leadership schemes.
Progressive HR doesn’t make a fossil fuel company green.