Meet our Board and Executive team

Mark Xavier has spent more than two decades putting aircraft with no pilot on board to work. He has led Brisbane-based V-TOL Aerospace as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer since 2004, building it into a CASA-approved remote operator and remote pilot training organisation. Its drones fit safety markers to high-voltage powerlines, and its clients have ranged from Australian governments and ASX 200 companies to the World Bank. Mark has held CASA Chief Remote Pilot certification since 2005.

His career began in the Australian Army. A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, he served with 3RAR (Airborne) before moving into military intelligence, and later completed an Executive MBA in International Business at the University of Queensland. Mark joined the Aviation Australia Board in 2025 and became Interim Chair in September 2026. He brings a builder’s view of where autonomy and artificial intelligence are taking the skills our industry needs.

Sara Hales started her working life in a Northern Territory stock camp as a teenager, and she still leads the same way: on the ground, alongside her team. After years on cattle stations and running a livestock transit operation in North Queensland, she joined Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport in 2013 while it was still being built. In under four years she rose from community liaison to General Manager, working with government towards the airport’s international designation and building its cargo business, including a weekly Cathay Pacific 747 freighter service to Hong Kong.

Today Sara is General Manager Aviation Operations at Archerfield Airport and runs Hales North, advising on air freight, airport feasibility and business cases. She chairs the Smart Cities Council’s Smart Transport Hubs Taskforce and writes on how airports can prepare for advanced air mobility. Sara joined the Aviation Australia Board in 2022 and chairs its People, Safety and Culture Committee.

Lorelei Baum works where big projects meet the communities they affect. As Communication and Stakeholder Engagement Lead for UnitingCare Queensland’s property team, she guides engagement across a portfolio worth more than a billion dollars, including new models of aged care that change how residents live day to day. Before that she ran stakeholder engagement for Lendlease retirement village developments on the Sunshine Coast, and she has advised organisations independently since 2014.

Lorelei is Deputy Chair of TAFE Queensland, a Fellow of Communication and Public Relations Australia and a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She holds a Bachelor of Business in Communication from QUT and has studied the ethics of artificial intelligence at the London School of Economics. She joined the Aviation Australia Board in 2025, bringing public training governance and a clear sense of how organisations earn trust.

Christopher Edwards has spent more than 25 years turning complex strategy and major investment into outcomes that hold up. He has led major programs and infrastructure advisory as Managing Director of Mace Australia and as Executive Director of Programs for Australia and New Zealand at Jacobs, following senior roles at Building Queensland, PwC, Hatch and RPS.

He has governed as well as delivered. Christopher chaired the Capital Works and the Risk and Audit committees at Racing Queensland, chaired Digital Transformation at the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, and sits on the Infrastructure Association of Queensland’s Brisbane 2032 Olympics Task Force. A Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors with an MBA, he joined the Aviation Australia Board in 2022. Training aviation professionals takes hangars, aircraft, simulators and campuses. Christopher brings the discipline to plan, fund and govern them well.

Sue Kelso has built her career on putting people at the centre of complex, regulated organisations. As Chief Experience Officer at Beyond Blue since 2022, she leads data, AI, digital, technology, design, brand and marketing with one aim: helping more Australians seek support earlier. Before that she was Chief Customer Experience Officer at Victoria’s Department of Transport as Public Transport Victoria and VicRoads came together, and she established the customer experience division at Comparethemarket.com.au.

Her senior leadership spans aviation, transport, health, property, construction and professional services. Sue holds a Master of Commerce from Swinburne University of Technology, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and served on auDA’s General Advisory Standing Committee. She joined the Aviation Australia Board in 2025. In her words, once you have lived and breathed aviation, the jet fuel stays in your veins.

Rick Heaton has been Chief Pilot at three Australian airlines. After flying the Airbus A320 as a Captain with Jetstar, he joined Alliance Airlines in 2011 as Fokker 100 Fleet Manager and spent seven years as its General Manager Flight Operations and Chief Pilot. He went on to lead flight operations as Chief Pilot at Tigerair Australia and then Network Aviation in Perth, accountable for the pilots, procedures and safety systems behind high capacity regular public transport services.

Since 2022 Rick has advised operators and coached aviation leaders through AeroNautique Training Solutions, with particular depth in safety management systems and training design. He holds a Master of Management (Aviation) from Griffith University, is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and sits on the Board of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia. On our Board he brings the view of someone who has set the standard pilots are trained and checked against.

Signature line Has spent most of his career turning people into professionals.
 Bio Glenn Ryan has spent most of his career turning people into professionals. As Commanding Officer of the 1st Recruit Training Battalion at Kapooka, he led the Army’s largest training unit, responsible for more than 4,400 trainees a year. He went on to manage current operations for Forces Command, serve as its Chief of Staff, and lead the Australian Army’s training as Director General Training and Doctrine. A year at Westpac added a view from inside corporate Australia.

Glenn became Chief Executive Officer of Aviation Australia in February 2024. He is a Member of the Order of Australia and a recipient of the United States Meritorious Service Medal. He has spoken publicly about the industry’s coming experience crisis, and his focus is clear: hold trusted conversations with industry about the workforce it will need in five years, then build the training to deliver it. That approach was recognised at the Queensland Training Awards 2026, for our industry partnership with Boeing Defence Australia.

Kellie Rowing has spent three decades keeping organisations’ finances and governance in good order. After graduating from Griffith University with a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and completing her Chartered Accountants program, she spent nearly ten years in client services at accounting firm Bentleys. She then served for more than a decade as Company Secretary of Transpacific Industries Group, the ASX-listed business now known as Cleanaway.

Kellie joined Aviation Australia as Financial Controller in 2016 and is also our Company Secretary. She oversees financial reporting, budgeting and controls, and is the link between the Board and the business, making sure decisions are properly made, recorded and carried through. Her work sits behind every aircraft on our training floor, every instructor we hire and every new program we launch.

Captain Tim Holland knows aircraft from both sides of the hangar door. He is a Saab 340 Training Captain and Type Rating Instructor, has flown the ATR 42 and 72 as Captain, and is a CASA Flight Examiner for licences and ratings from recreational through to instrument and type ratings. He is also a CASA Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer, which means he trains pilots with an engineer’s understanding of the aircraft.

Kim has run flight training operations for more than a decade, including as Head of Operations and Chief Flying Instructor at Sunshine Coast Flight Training since 2014, and has flown as a training captain with Corporate Air and as an airline pilot with Aerlink. He joined Aviation Australia as Head of Pilot Training in 2025. He holds a Bachelor of Aviation from CQUniversity and a Master of Aviation from Massey University, is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and has received the Master Air Pilot Award from the Honourable Company of Air Pilots.

Brendan Mikkelson knows Aviation Australia from the numbers up. He joined us as Financial Controller in 2012, then spent a decade with ARX Aerospace and Defense in Riyadh, where he served as Chief Financial Officer and then Chief Executive Officer from 2016 to 2022 before becoming an advisor to its board. That gave him first-hand experience of building aviation training capability in Saudi Arabia’s growing aviation sector.

Brendan returned to Aviation Australia as Chief Commercial Officer in 2025. He leads our partnerships with airlines, defence, industry and government in Australia and overseas, including recent agreements with Royal Brunei Airlines and Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah. He was part of the team recognised at the Queensland Training Awards 2026 for Aviation Australia’s industry partnership with Boeing Defence Australia.

Kerrie Fiechtner believes HR should be a trusted advisor, and she measures her success by how often leaders and employees come to her door. She has led People and Culture at Aviation Australia since 2018 and is responsible for the people strategies behind our 2025 to 2030 Strategic Plan, from attracting experienced industry instructors to building a culture where they choose to stay.

Before joining us, Kerrie spent more than three years at Powerlink Queensland, partnering with senior leaders through structural change and leading people services and analytics, and held a senior HR role at WorkCover Queensland. Her experience spans public and private organisations in Brisbane and London. She holds a Master of Leadership in Change Management from the University of New England and a Bachelor of Business in Human Resource Management from QUT, and is a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner.

Owen Buckley makes sure every qualification Aviation Australia issues stands up to scrutiny. As Head of Risk and Compliance he oversees our obligations as a Registered Training Organisation and CRICOS provider, alongside the aviation approvals that allow our students’ training to count toward their licences.

Kylie Hine is responsible for the first conversation most people have with Aviation Australia. Since 2023 she has led marketing and customer experience as one function, covering everything from the campaigns that spark a school leaver’s interest to the team that answers their questions, helps them choose a course and stays with them through to enrolment.

Kylie brings more than 15 years in senior marketing roles across education, property and social enterprise. She was Marketing Director at Stuartholme School and Marketing Manager at QUT, and led the rebrand and 20-year strategy for the Providence masterplanned community at South Ripley. She holds a Bachelor of Business in Marketing from Griffith University. Kylie leads marketing and service together because they are the same promise, made at different moments.
 Sources: LinkedIn profile.

Melissa Taiapa has spent most of her career inside the Qantas Group. She began in flight operations at QantasLink, managing flight operations administration, then spent seven years as a manager at Qantas before joining Aviation Australia in 2023 to lead our work on the Qantas Group Engineering Academy in Brisbane.

The Academy opened in 2025 and expects to take on around 200 new engineers each year, all employed by the Qantas Group from day one and paid while they learn. Melissa coordinates the people, timetables, facilities and standards that keep the partnership running, drawing on an MBA in Aviation from Griffith University and a Certificate IV in Workplace Training. Her work is where an airline’s workforce plan becomes a class of apprentices on the hangar floor.

Chris Pigott came to Aviation Australia from the engineering side of regional aviation. He was Director of Engineering at Airnorth and ran businesses of his own before joining us in 2006. For two decades since, he has led business development across North Queensland and the Northern Territory, building the relationships that keep the Cairns Aviation Skills Centre and the Territory Aviation Skills Centre connected to the operators they train for.

Chris sits on the boards of both skills centres, chaired the Australasian Aviation Group Cairns from 2011 to 2014, and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He pairs a director’s eye for risk and governance with a long view of what regional aviation needs to grow.

Harsha Patel grew up close to airports. Her family ran the duty-free shop at the terminal in Fiji, and she spent time at the aerodrome watching her father learn to fly. Her own career began in the classroom. She taught English in several countries and became a Cambridge-accredited teacher trainer, then joined Aviation Australia to help build our Aviation English courses. They teach the language pilots, engineers, cabin crew and remote pilots rely on when the stakes are high.

Today Harsha is Operations Manager Flight Safety, overseeing cabin crew training, English language training and the hire of training devices to airlines. Outside work she co-founded the Saraswati Trust, which sponsors students at a school her grandfather built in India. In the training room her starting point never changes. Cabin crew is a safety role first, and every word counts.

David Pollard has taught, assessed and scheduled Aviation Australia’s technical training, and now leads it. An avionics engineer by background, he joined us in 2015 as an Avionics Instructor and Assessor in Brisbane. He then moved to Melbourne as Avionics Specialist Instructor and Assessment Coordinator, and went on to supervise the Melbourne site as Port Supervisor and Senior Instructor.

In 2022 David returned to Brisbane as Network Planning Manager, scheduling training across our national network. He now leads technical training nationally in an acting capacity. The program trains the next generation of aircraft maintenance engineers, and David has seen it from every side: in the classroom, at the assessment table and on the national timetable.

When a student passes an Aviation Australia assessment, that result can count toward a licence and a career. Tracey Rasheed makes sure it is fair, consistent and would hold up under audit. As Manager Assessment, she oversees how assessment is run across our courses, so a pass means the same thing on every campus and in every program.

Tracey’s career spans aerospace and higher education. She managed business support at Airbus, then spent several years at the University of Southern Queensland in operations and program management, including leading its academic calendar transformation. She holds a Bachelor of Science from USQ, and brings a project manager’s discipline to work where the details decide outcomes for students.

Professor Talal Yusaf is working on where aviation’s next fuel will come from, and who will be trained to use it. A mechanical engineer with a PhD in renewable energy, he has published widely on hydrogen in aviation and supervised more than 50 PhD candidates. As Executive Dean, he leads Aviation Australia’s higher education programs and research, including work on green hydrogen and fuel cell technology for aircraft.

Talal has spent more than three decades in universities across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and Queensland. He led international and research partnerships at the University of Southern Queensland from 2008 to 2018, then served as Pro Vice-Chancellor, International and Partnerships at Federation University Australia. He holds a professorship at Central Queensland University and has built partnerships with universities in Malaysia and the UAE. A former member of our Board, he now leads the work connecting our training to university study and research.

Ryan McMahon was training remote pilots in the industry’s early years, designing and delivering courses for several RPAS operators. An experienced aviator, he founded Remote Aviation Australia in 2017 as its Director and Chief Remote Pilot, and partnered with Aviation Australia to launch our remote pilot course. Remote Aviation went on to become our RPAS training division.

As National RPAS Training Manager, Ryan leads remote pilot training across the country. He has presented on RPA capabilities at industry conferences around Australia and helped write RPAS textbooks for the Aviation Theory Centre. Remote pilots share the same airspace as everyone else, and Ryan trains them to the same standard as anyone else in the sky.

G

ordon Brown recently helped bring lightboard technology into Aviation Australia’s classrooms, so instructors can draw and explain complex aircraft systems in real time. It is the kind of change he looks for. As Manager, Product Design and Development, he leads how our courses are designed, built and kept current, and he has also managed Airbus Helicopters training.

An educator by training, Gordon holds a Bachelor of Education from the University of Technology Sydney and a Diploma of Project Management. He built his career in aerospace training, including at Australian Aerospace, where he was recognised in 2012 for overhauling its training needs analysis process. His work shapes what students meet in the classroom, built around how people actually learn.