A conversation with Amanda Healy

How do you combine running successful businesses with your passion for social change?

Committee for Perth invites you to hear how Indigenous business leader Amanda Healy has made a real impact in industries as wildly different as engineering and fashion.

Amanda will share her stories of making a difference at our Executive Women’s Leadership Forum on June 13.

After years of working for big mining companies, the proud Wonnarua woman from the Hunter Valley started her own WA-based engineering company in 2003, giving opportunities to women in a male-dominated industry.

Then in 2014 she shifted in the world of fashion with her passion project: a social enterprise called Kirrikin, which combines authentic Aboriginal art and luxury fabrics. A percentage of each purchase is returned to the artist.

Amanda is now the CEO of engineering company Warrikal, which she co-founded in 2017, and has been inducted into the WA Women’s Hall of Fame.

The Executive Women’s Leadership Forum is a community of executive level, senior and future-leading women in Committee for Perth’s membership, who meet throughout the year to hear from inspiring leaders about their career and life journey.

We encourage you to extend this invitation to an up-and-coming female leader from within your organisation who would benefit from this important learning and networking event. 

EVENT PHOTOS

Our speaker

Amanda Healy

With more than 30 years in the mining industry, and the last 20 running SME’s, her Aboriginal heritage caused her to add a social enterprise to her portfolio in 2014.

Her career has taken her internationally and led her to work in some of the most remote mine sites on the planet.  From the wilds of Canada to the remote Kimberly in WA, during a time when communication was not so easy, and promotions were hard to come by for women. In 2003, she started her own Engineering business, and created a whole new space for women in a male dominated industry.

In 2014 Amanda started her passion project – a social enterprise – Kirrikin.  Digitally printing authentic Aboriginal art onto luxury fabrics turning them into clothing and accessories. Kirrikin is building an international following, and recently appeared in runway shows in Brussels, London and Dublin, and have just been invited back to appear in London, Paris and Madrid Fashion weeks in September 2023. After being granted a Churchill Fellowship in 2019, Amanda spent the last quarter of 2022 studying fashion studio skills in Paris, to further support the growth and professionalism of Kirrikin.

Amanda is a Wonnarua woman from (Koori nation) – traditional owners of the Hunter Valley – she grew up in Geraldton WA and has spent much of her life on Noongar country.