Brave Feminine Leadership Ep. #244 – Shaping The Future | In Conversation with Shomaice Zowghi: Be in the Room Where It Happens

Shomaice Zowghi walked into one of Australia's most closed, male-dominated industrial environments as the first female Director of Industrial Relations in a 107-year-old passenger railway system. Deals had always been done at the pub. Networks were tight and the door was shut. She didn't look like the role. She didn't sound like it. She carved out a place anyway - on both sides of the table.

She came to this work through law, through lived experience, and through a deep belief - shaped by parents who raised her to care about fairness, dignity and social justice - that the conditions people work in either build them up or quietly break them down.

In this conversation, Shomaice talks about what it really means to be a workforce architect - thinking about capability before the problem arrives, not after. About the lawyer behaviours she had to deliberately unlearn before she could truly lead. And about why loud, visible confidence is one of the most dangerous things we mistake for leadership potential.

Shomaice Zowghi is Head of People at Pacific National, Australia's largest private rail freight operator, and a former employment lawyer whose background in industrial relations, social justice and lived experience shapes everything about how she leads.